The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 


The  Parables  of  the 
Old  Testament 


NOV  10  19^0 

CLARENCE  EDWARD  ^MACARTNEY,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Minister,  Arch  Street  Presbyterian  Church, 
Philadelphia,  Pa, 


New  York       Chicago       Toronto 

Fleming    H.    Revell    Company 

London       and       Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


To  my  friends  in  the  First  Presby- 
terian Church  of  Pater  son,  New  Jersey  ^ 
and  the  Arch  Street  Presbyterian 
Churchy  of  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania 


Preface 

SOME  years  ago  I  commenced  a  study  of  the 
Parables  of  the  Old  Testament  with  the 
purpose  of  making  use  of  the  Parables  as 
material  for  sermons.  I  was  not  disappointed  as 
to  the  suggestions  afforded  by  such  a  study;  in- 
deed, it  opened  up  for  me  a  rich  vein  of  moral  and 
spiritual  truth.  But  I  was  surprised  to  find  how 
little  there  was  in  print  that  would  be  of  help  to 
me  in  conducting  such  a  study.  Book  stalls  and 
libraries  abound  in  volumes  on  the  Parables  of  the 
New  Testament,  but  nowhere,  either  in  America 
or  Great  Britain,  could  I  come  on  a  single  book 
which  dealt  with  the  Parables  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Whatever,  then,  the  offenses  of  this  volume, 
it  cannot  be  laid  against  it  that  it  traverses  a  field 
whose  fruits  already  have  been  harvested  and 
garnered.  As  for  these  Parables,  I  think  I  can 
feel  almost  like  those  mariners  of  the  sixteenth 
century  who  sailed  upon  seas  that  never  before  had 
been  cleft  by  the  keel  of  a  ship. 

I  have  no  desire  to  draw  out  fine  spun  distinc- 
tions between  the  different  forms  of  illustrative 
speech.  "We  used  to  define  them  and  refine  them 
in  our  college  days ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
partitions  which  divide  metaphor  from  simile,  and 
allegory  from  parable,  and  parable  from  fable,  are 
exceedingly  thin.    The  human  spirit,  when  it  de- 

7 


8  Preface 

sires  to  express  an  idea,  readies  out  for  some  way 
of  illustrating  that  idea.  Eliphaz  wished  to  ex- 
press the  beauty  and  usefulness  of  the  old  age  of  a 
good  man;  so  he  said,  "Thou  shalt  come  to  thy 
grave  in  a  full  age,  as  a  shock  of  corn  cometh  in 
his  season."  That  is  a  direct  comparison  of  two 
spheres,  the  ideal  and  the  material,  the  human  and 
the  vegetable,  the  life  of  man  and  the  life  of  the 
corn.  This  sort  of  illustration  we  call  a  simile. 
Or,  in  a  more  direct  way,  the  formal  comparison 
may  be  omitted  and  the  thing  to  be  illustrated 
identified  for  the  moment  with  the  object  of  com- 
parison. Jesus  wished  to  say  that  the  Pharisees 
were  like  the  sepulchres,  white  without  but  rotten 
within ;  but  instead  of  saying,  "  Ye  are  like  unto 
whited  sepulchres"  He  said,  "Woe  unto  you, 
whited  sepulchres  ! "     This  we  call  a  metaphor. 

The  word  "  parable "  comes  from  two  Greek 
words  which  mean  to  place  side  by  side.  In  the 
parable,  then,  we  lay  one  kind  of  actions  in  one  kind 
of  sphere  alongside  of  another  kind  of  actions  in  an- 
other kind  of  sphere,  and  illustrate  the  one  by  the 
other.  Jesus  said  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was 
like  unto  a  man  going  into  a  far  country,  or  a  shep- 
herd who  had  a  hundred  sheep,  or  a  fisherman  cast- 
ing his  nets,  or  a  merchant  giving  his  servants 
money  for  investment,  or  a  sower  going  forth  to 
sow.  In  other  words.  He  laid  the  spiritual  king- 
dom side  by  side  with  the  animal  or  vegetable  or 
mineral,  or  the  occupations  of  men  in  those  king- 
doms. 


Preface  9 ' 

The  difference  between  the  Parables  of  Jesus 
and  those  of  the  Old  Testament  consists  in  the  fact 
that  nearly  all  the  Parables  of  Jesus  teach  a  spir- 
itual truth  that  is  timeless,  and  has  no  particular 
relation  to  or  connection  with  the  occasion  or  con- 
dition of  utterance.  The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Sheep 
tells  of  the  redeeming  love  of  God  and  speaks  to 
all  ages  and  all  conditions  of  men.  But  the  Parable 
of  the  Ewe  Lamb  was  spoken  by  Nathan  for  the 
purpose  of  arousing  David  to  a  sense  of  his  sin 
against  Uriah  the  Hittite.  This  is  true  of  every 
Parable  commented  upon  in  this  volume ;  they  were 
messages  for  a  special  occasion.  ISTevertheless,  they 
teem  with  suggestions  of  truth  that  is  applicable 
for  any  age,  and,  in  many  instances,  they  may  be 
made  the  vehicle  of  evangelical  truth,  as  well  as 
general  or  moral.  The  Fable  of  the  Thistle  and 
the  Cedar  was  spoken  to  rebuke  one  king  fer  his 
presumption  in  dealing  with  another  king.  The 
two  kings  are  long  dead,  but  the  Fable  still  may 
be  used  to  point  the  lesson  that  pride  goeth  before 
destruction  and  the  haughty  spirit  before  a  fall. 
The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  in  Isaiah  was  spoken 
with  reference  to  the  imminent  overthrow  of  Judah 
and  the  dispersion  of  her  citizens.  But  who  does 
not  see  in  it  a  noble  and  beautiful  sermon  on  the 
full  provision  of  God's  love  and  the  peril  involved 
in  the  rejection  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  And  as  for  the 
Atonement,  what  better  passage  could  one  have 
from  which  to  explain  that  great  doctrine  than  the 
Parable  of  the  Wise  Woman  of  Tekoah  ? 


10  Preface 

Although  this  volume  is  entitled  "  The  Parables 
of  the  Old  Testament,"  there  are  included  in  it  two 
fables,  and  the  only  fables  in  the  Bible,  that  of  the 
Trees  and  that  of  the  Thistle  and  the  Cedar.  The 
fable  differs  from  the  parable  in  that  in  the  fable 
the  subjects  of  the  mineral  or  vegetable  or  animal 
kingdom  "  feign  to  speak  and  act  with  human  in- 
terest and  passion."  But  the  general  purpose  of 
the  fable  and  the  parable  are  the  same,  to  illustrate 
moral  and  spiritual  truth  by  comparison  with  what 
actually  transpires,  or  is  imagined  to  transpire,  in 
the  life  of  man  or  in  the  world  of  nature. 

The  minister  who  chooses  to  preach  from  the 
Parables  of  the  Old  Testament  will  find  that  most 
of  the  stories  are  new  and  fresh  to  his  auditors,  and 
he  himself  will  not  fail  to  share  in  the  consequent 
interest  and  alertness  which  such  preaching  awakens 
in  a  congregation.  The  teacher  or  popular  speaker 
will  find  much  in  these  Parables  which  may  be  em- 
ployed with  telling  effect  to  illustrate  morals.  The 
Parables  dealt  with  in  this  volume  represent  the 
garnered  wisdom  of  prophets,  chroniclers,  and 
seers,  some  of  them  known  and  some  of  them  un- 
known, but  all  worthy  of  a  better  acquaintance. 
These  addresses  have  been  delivered  and  this  book 
is  now  sent  forth  in  the  JS'ame  of  Him  who  taught 
the  people  in  Parables,  and  without  a  Parable 
spake  He  not  unto  them. 

C.  E.  M. 

Philadelphia^  Pa. 


Contents 


L    The  Parable  of  the  Trees   .   .  13 

n.    The  Parable  of  the  Thistle  and 

THE  Cedar 24 

III.  The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Prisoner  33 

IV.  The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb   .  43 

V.  The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of 

Tekoah 54 

VI.  The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard        .  64 

VII.  The    Parable    of    the    Faithless 

Wives 83 

VIII.  The  Parable  of  the  Two  Eagles 

AND  THE  Vine 94 

IX.  The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman     .  109 


II 


The  Parable  of  the  Trees 

Judges  ix.  7-20 

THIS  is  a  rough  and  tumble  world  that  we 
enter  when  we  open  our  Bibles  to  the 
Book  of  Judges.  Men  are  a  law  unto 
themselves,  and  the  result  is  lawlessness  and  un- 
righteousness. Everything  is  on  the  heroic  scale — 
mirth,  sorrow,  revenge,  hate,  murder,  anger,  love 
of  country.  Silhouetted  against  this  dark  back- 
ground are  strange  and  unforgetable  characters 
who  move  across  the  stage  of  Israel  to  the  music  of 
strong  passions :  Shamgar,  Gideon,  Samson,  Deb- 
orah, Jael,  Jephthah,  Jotham.  Jotham  speaks  and 
is  gone,  but  his  message  remains. 

The  bright  day  of  Gideon*s  work  for  God  and 
Israel  had  set  in  darkness  and  in  gloom.  The  hero  of 
the  victory  over  the  hosts  of  the  Midianites  had  fallen 
a  victim  to  the  glory  of  that  victory.  Out  of  the 
golden  earrings,  pendants,  crescents,  chains,  wristlets 
and  anklets  taken  from  the  fallen  foe,  Gideon  made 
an  ephod  which  was  worshipped  by  Israel  as  an  idol. 
"And  Gideon  made  an  ephod  even  in  Ophrah." 
"  Even  in  Ophrah  !  " — as  if  the  sacred  chronicler 
would  tell  of  his  grief  and  surprise  at  the  last  end 
of  Gideon.  Where  was  Ophrah  ?  It  was  beneath 
the  oak  at  Ophrah  that  Gideon  was  beating  out  the 

13 


14       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

grain  to  hide  it  from  the  Midianites,  his  heart  burn- 
ing with  anger  against  the  invaders,  when  the  angel 
of  the  Lord  appeared  unto  him  and  cried,  "  The 
Lord  is  with  thee,  thou  mighty  man  of  valour."  It 
was  in  Ophrah  that  God  called  him.  There  the 
fire  came  forth  to  devour  the  offering  on  the  rocks, 
and  there  Gideon  pressed  the  fleece  of  wool  to- 
gether and  wrung  out  the  dew%  a  bowlful  of  w^ater. 
"Even  in  Ophrah!"  You  would  think  that  if 
Gideon  were  going  to  forget  God  and  worship 
idols,  he  would  have  set  up  that  idol  anywhere 
save  in  Ophrah,  with  the  great  and  holy  memories 
of  his  youth.  Yet  is  not  this  what  we  often  see  in 
life,  idols  built  in  Ophrah  ?  Take  the  man  who 
has  long  ceased  to  name  the  name  of  God  back  to 
the  church  of  his  youth,  back  to  the  old  family  pew, 
and  let  him  sit  there  and  call  up  the  days  and  the 
faces  that  are  gone ;  let  him  think  of  the  youth, 
the  child,  that  once  sat  there  with  a  heart  that 
knew  no  bitterness,  and  a  life  that  was  free  from 
the  stain  of  sin  ;  and  let  him  compare  that  child,  as 
pure  as  the  morning  dew%  with  the  sated  sinner 
worshipping  the  idols  of  this  w^orld.  Take  the 
husband  and  wife  whose  hearts  have  grown  cold, 
alienated,  separated,  divorced,  back  to  that  morning 
of  love,  when  to  seek  each  other's  happiness  was 
life's  chief  joy,  when  with  hand  clasped  in  hand, 
their  faces  bright  with  the  holy  oil  of  joy  and  their 
souls  arrayed  in  the  garments  of  praise,  they  re- 
peated the  vows  they  once  thought  naught  could 
sever  : — "  I  do  promise  and  covenant,  before  God 


The  Parable  of  the  Trees  15 

and  man,  to  be  thy  loving  and  faithful  wife,  hus- 
band, in  plenty  and  in  want,  in  joy  and  in  sorrow, 
in  sickness  and  in  health,  until  death  us  do  part." 
Take  the  man  who  has  failed  in  the  race  of  life,  or 
if  successful,  wears  honours  that  are  tainted,  and 
does,  as  a  matter  of  habit,  things  that  once  he  would 
have  scorned  to  do ;  take  that  man  back  to  the 
morning  of  his  consecration,  to  the  day  when  he 
left  the  doors  of  the  college  with  the  fires  of  high 
resolution  and  lofty  ambition  burning  in  his  heart, 
and  let  him  contrast  his  present,  disenchanted,  dis- 
illusioned, easy-principled  self  with  that  youth  of 
long  ago,  when  the  fleece  was  filled  with  dew  and 
the  God  spake  on  every  wind  that  blew.  Oh,  these 
abandoned,  forgotten,  sinned  against  Ophrahs  of 
the  past !  Now  the  fleece  is  dry ;  no  flame  goes 
up  from  the  altar ;  no  voice  of  God  makes  the 
heart  beat  quick  and  the  eye  look  up. 

That  was  the  fate  of  Gideon.  But  he  had 
enough  character  left  to  refuse  the  proffered  crown. 
When  they  said,  "  Eule  thou  over  us,"  he  answered, 
"  I  will  not  rule  over  you  ;  neither  will  my  son  rule 
over  you.  The  Lord  shall  rule  you."  But  when 
Gideon  was  dead  and  buried  in  the  sepulchre  of 
Joash,  his  father,  the  family  quarrels  began.  A 
nation's  memory  is  short,  and  Gideon's  service  was 
soon  forgotten  in  the  service  of  Baal.  Among  the 
sons  of  Gideon  was  Abimelech,  a  base,  contempt- 
ible man,  illegitimate  in  birth  and  lawless  in  heart. 
But  if  he  possessed  less  virtue  than  the  other  sons, 
he  had  more  ambition  than  all.    His  being  the  son 


l6       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

of  the  concubine  shut  him  out  from  a  chance  for 
the  crown,  should  Israel  decide  to  have  a  king. 
He  therefore  went  among  his  mother's  friends  at 
Shechem  and  persuaded  them  to  assist  him  in  the 
slaughter  of  the  seventy  sons  of  Gideon  on  one 
stone  at  Ophrah.  Then  they  went  out  to  crown 
him  king  by  the  oak  that  was  in  Shechem.  But 
the  bloody  knife  of  Abimelech  had  not  quite  fin- 
ished its  work.  The  youngest  son,  Jotham,  escaped. 
That  is  always  the  way  with  evil  and  evil  deeds. 
Truth  and  righteousness  are  never  left  without  an 
heir  to  their  throne.  Some  youngest  son  escapes 
the  sword  and  comes  back  to  judge.  Evil  builds 
its  tower,  grim  and  strong  walled ;  but  it  leaves 
some  chink  or  crevice  through  which  flies  the  arrow 
of  judgment.  Truth  and  justice  may  seem  to  be 
suppressed  and  none  left  to  speak  on  their  behalf, 
when,  from  some  unexpected  quarter,  comes  the 
voice  to  assure  and  to  judge. 

Just  as  the  men  of  Shechem  were  crying  ''  God 
save  the  king ! "  Jotham  appeared  to  tell  them 
what  kind  of  king  they  had  chosen.  From  his 
station  on  the  top  of  Mount  Gerizim  he  told  his 
fable  of  the  trees.  "The  trees  went  forth  on  a 
time  to  anoint  a  king  over  them ;  and  they  said 
unto  the  olive  tree,  '  Reign  thou  over  us.'  But  the 
olive  tree  said  unto  them,  '  Should  I  leave  my  fat- 
ness, wherewith  by  me  they  honour  man  and  God, 
and  go  to  wave  to  and  fro  over  the  trees  ?  '  And 
the  trees  said  to  the  fig  tree,  *  Come  thou  and  reign 
over  us.'    But  the  fig  tree  said  unto  them,  *  Should 


The  Parable  of  the  Trees  17 

I  leave  my  sweetness  and  my  good  fruit,  and  go  to 
wave  to  and  fro  over  the  trees  ? '  And  the  trees 
said  unto  the  vine,  *  Come  thou  and  reign  over  us.' 
And  the  vine  said  unto  them,  *  Should  I  leave  my 
new  wine,  which  cheereth  God  and  man,  and  go  to 
wave  to  and  fro  over  the  trees  ? '  Then  said  all 
the  trees  unto  the  bramble,  '  Come  thou  and  reign 
over  us.'  And  the  bramble  said  unto  the  trees,  '  If 
in  truth  ye  anoint  me  king  over  you,  then  come 
and  take  refuge  in  my  shade ;  and  if  not,  let  fire 
come  out  of  the  bramble  and  devour  the  cedars  of 
Lebanon.' " 

The  astounded  Abimelech  and  his  confederates 
saw  all  too  plainly  the  point  of  the  parable.  The  peo- 
ple had  rejected  the  sons  of  Gideon  who  might  have 
ruled  them  with  justice  and  equity,  and  had  chosen 
the  basest  and  the  wickedest  of  the  sons,  a  man 
among  men  as  the  bramble  among  the  trees.  They 
must  now  serve  Abimelech  with  slavish  fear,  or  he 
would  burn  them  in  his  wrath.  This  proved  to  be 
so.  Jotham  was  not  only  a  satirist,  but  a  prophet. 
In  three  years  the  men  of  Shechem  got  tired  of 
their  bargain,  and  rebelled  against  their  bramble 
king.  Abimelech  came  with  his  army,  took  their 
city  by  storm,  and  slew  the  people  and  beat  down 
the  walls  and  sowed  the  place  with  salt.  If  any 
of  the  men  of  Shechem  were  left  to  tell  the  tale, 
they  remembered  the  word  of  Jotham,  "  Fire  shall 
come  out  of  the  bramble  and  devour  the  cedar  of 
Lebanon." 

The  trees  by  their  own  vote  elected  a  bramble 


i8       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

over  them.  Their  forest  government  was  what 
they  made  it,  nothing  more,  nothing  less.  They 
elected  and  crowned  a  bramble,  and  the  bramble 
ruled  them  like  a  bramble.  Life  is  what  you  make 
it.  You  choose  your  own  king  and  government. 
At  first  you  may  feel  tempted  to  challenge  this 
proposition  that  life  is  what  you  make  it.  You 
answer  that  life  is  made  for  you.  You  came 
into  the  world  by  no  wish  or  plan  of  your  own ; 
you  found  yourself  born  into  a  home  where  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  example  and  thought  and  life  pre- 
vailed ;  as  soon  as  you  commenced  to  breathe,  you 
were  formed,  moulded,  coloured,  by  that  thought ; 
on  your  shoulder  was  laid  the  mysterious  hand  of 
heredity,  guiding  you  along  paths  that  your  fathers 
trod  before  you ;  you  can  no  more  throw  off  your 
past  than  you  can  blot  out  your  present ;  you  find 
yourself  in  a  given  intellectual,  or  moral,  or  religious 
scale  of  life  by  no  desire  and  by  no  protest  of  your 
own ;  you  travel  your  threescore  and  ten  along  this 
path  of  life,  here  and  there  a  rough  place  where 
the  stones  bruised  you ;  here  and  there  a  dark, 
deep  place  where  the  floods  overwhelmed  you,  and 
here  and  there  a  pleasant  meadow-land  where  the 
fields  were  peaceful  and  bright  with  flowers,  and 
here  and  there  high,  exalted,  spiritual  places  where 
the  winds  were  fresh  and  the  air  was  clear,  and 
you  thought  you  could  see  the  land  to  which  you 
were  travelling.  Now,  as  you  grope  your  way 
down  the  path  that  leads  you  into  silent,  mist- 
wrapped  valleys,  looking  back  over  the  long  journey 


The  Parable  of  the  Trees  19 

where  you  met  with  joys  that  were  so  real  and  so 
divine,  sorrows  that  were  so  real  and  so  penetrating, 
gains  so  indefinable  and  losses  so  irreparable,  are 
you  not  tempted  to  say  that  life  was  not  so  much 
what  you  made  it  as  what  you  found  it  and  were 
compelled  to  take  ? 

**  Ah,  love  !  could  you  and  I  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  scheme  of  things  entire, 
Would  we  not  shatter  it  to  bits, 
And  mould  it  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire? " 

Things  that  we  might  have  done  differently  ;  things 
that  we  would  change  in  life  if  we  could  turn  back 
the  years,  and  other  things  that  we  could  never 
change — all  this  comes  to  mind  when  we  think  at 
all  seriously  about  our  life.  But  when  we  get 
above  the  incidents  of  existence,  and  come  to  the 
finer  issues  of  the  soul,  regardless  of  the  station 
into  which  we  were  born,  regardless  of  the  place 
which  we  now  hold,  it  remains  true  that  life  is 
what  we  make  it. 

Clad  in  all  her  beauty  and  mystery,  life  stands  be- 
fore us  as  the  Lord  stood  before  Solomon  when  he 
dreamed  his  dream  on  the  holy  hill  of  Gibeon,  and 
speaks  to  us  saying,  "  Ask  what  I  shall  give  thee." 

**  I  am  the  Master  of  my  fate  ; 
I  am  the  Captain  of  my  soul.'' 

There  are  all  kinds  of  trees  in  the  forest,  and 
there  are  all  kinds  of  desires  and  emotions  and  con- 
siderations, vices  and  graces,  possible  for  the  hu- 


20       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

man  soul.  Only  in  a  fable,  only  in  imagination, 
can  the  trees  choose  a  king ;  but  man  is  above  the 
trees  of  the  field ;  he  can  and  does  choose  his  king. 
You  have  chosen  your  king  for  to-day.  When  this 
Sabbath  day  with  its  privileges  and  duties  is  past, 
some  will  go  to  their  beds  tired  in  body,  but  not  in 
heart,  for  they  have  scattered  the  seeds  of  light 
and  love  about  them ;  they  have  thought  of  others, 
they  have  toiled  for  others ;  they  have  spoken  the 
word  in  season,  instructed  many  and  upholden  the 
fallen,  wiped  away  tears  from  the  eyes  of  those 
who  wept,  and  as  a  ship  at  sea  leaves  a  track  of 
white  foam  behind  it,  they  have  left  behind  them  a 
path  that  is  bright  with  love  and  honour.  But 
others,  with  the  same  opportunities,  and  the  same 
temptations,  will  go  to  their  beds  weary  and  ill  at 
ease,  dissatisfied,  fretful,  unhappy,  because  they 
gave  themselves  over  to  the  dominion  of  their  own 
desires,  aims,  appetites,  worshipping  their  own  dis- 
likes, prejudices,  enmities.  Instead  of  the  fig,  the 
olive,  the  vine,  they  have  made  the  bramble  king, 
and  the  bramble  has  ruled  them  like  a  bramble. 
Be  miserable,  wretched,  contemptible,  if  you  want 
to  be,  but  don't  blame  it  on  God,  or  your  lot  in  life. 
You  make  your  own  king !  Oh,  how  often,  with  a 
folly  not  unlike  that  of  the  fabled  trees,  we  are  the 
deliberate  electors  and  architects  of  our  own  un- 
happiness  and  distress ! 

There  was  a  young  English  poet,  born  to  station 
and  wealth  and  education,  and  gifted  with  the 
great  gift  of  song.     He  scorned  much  that  was 


The  Parable  of  the  Trees  21 

high  and  holy  in  life,  tasted  much  of  life's  bitter- 
ness, had  his  share  of  its  flattery  and  praise,  and 
went  to  his  grave  at  thirty-seven.  Of  life  this  is 
what  he  had  to  say  : 

"  Fame,  wisdom,  love  and  power  were  mine, 

And  health  and  youth  possessed  me  ; 
My  goblets  blush'd  from  every  vine, 

And  lovely  forms  caressed  me  : 
I  sunn'd  my  heart  in  beauty's  eyes. 

And  felt  my  soul  grow  tender  ; 
All  earth  can  give  or  mortal  prize, 

Was  mine  of  regal  splendour. 

**  I  strive  to  number  o'er  what  days 

Eemembrance  can  discover, 
Which  all  that  life  or  earth  displays 

Would  lure  me  to  live  over. 
There  rose  no  day,  there  roll'd  no  hour 

Of  pleasure  unembitter'd  ; 
And  not  a  trapping  deck'd  my  power 

That  gall'd  not  while  it  glitter' d.^' 

Towards  the  end  of  the  same  century  another 
young  poet  and  writer  finished  his  journey.  He, 
too,  was  born  to  refinement,  knowledge,  ambition. 
His  life  was  gentle  and  his  song  was  pure.  When 
he  came  to  die  in  his  island  home  amid  the  surges 
of  the  Pacific,  after  his  long  battle  with  the  thorn 
in  the  flesh,  he  said  : 

"  Under  the  wide  and  starry  sky. 
Dig  the  grave  and  let  me  lie. 
Glad  did  I  live  and  gladly  die. 
And  I  laid  me  down  with  a  will. 


22       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

This  be  the  verse  you  grave  for  me, 
Here  he  lies  where  he  longed  to  be, 
Home  is  the  sailor — home  from  the  sea, 
And  the  hunter— home  from  the  hill. " 

One  lived  so  that  when  he  came  to  die  life  was 
nothing  but  a  desert  of  regrets  and  bitter  recollec- 
tions. The  other  lived  so  that  when  he  came  to 
die  he  could  say  that  he  had  "  gladly  lived  "  and 
therefore  he  could  gladly  die.  Life  was  what  they 
made  it. 

When  Pilate  brought  out  Jesus  before  the  people, 
he  cried  to  them,  "  Behold  your  king ! "  They 
answered,  "  Away  with  him,  away  with  him ! 
Crucify  him,  crucify  him ! "  Pilate  said,  "  Shall 
I  crucify  your  king  ?  "  They  cried,  "  We  have  no 
king  but  Caesar !  "  That  was  their  choice,  and  as 
their  choice  so  was  their  doom.  Seventy  years 
after  Christ  died  on  Calvary  beneath  the  super- 
scription, in  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Latin,  "  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  King  of  the  Jews,"  Titus  came  with  his 
army,  and  after  a  siege  of  three  years'  duration 
and  of  unparalleled  suffering  and  fei'ocity,  the  walls 
of  Jerusalem  were  battered  down.  A  legionary, 
standing  on  the  shoulders  of  one  of  his  fellows,  put 
a  torch  to  one  of  the  golden  windows  of  the  temple. 
The  Jews  rushed  in  to  save  their  shrine,  and  died 
by  the  thousands  until  their  blood  ran  down  the 
steps  of  the  holy  place  like  a  river,  l^o  king  but 
Caesar !  On  that  day  Jewish  history  came  to  an 
end.  Ashes,  blood,  carnage,  heaps  of  slaughtered, 
fallen   walls,  desecrated  shrines.     **No   king  but 


The  Parable  of  the  Trees  23 

Caesar ! "  And  fire  came  out  of  the  bramble.  "  O 
Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the  prophets, 
and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often 
would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even 
as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings, 
and  ye  would  not !  Behold  your  house  is  left  unto 
you  desolate." 

"  And  ye  would  not ! "  Over  how  many  cities, 
over  how  many  souls  must  Christ  utter  that  la- 
ment? They  refuse  His  olive  branch  of  blood- 
bought  peace  and  the  shelter  of  His  vine,  and  take 
the  bramble  of  unforgiving,  unregenerate,  impla- 
cable self  for  king.  "  If  thou  hadst  known  who  it 
is  that  saith  unto  thee,  ^  Give  me  to  drink,'  thou 
wouldst  have  asked  of  him,"  said  Jesus  to  the 
woman  at  the  well.  If  you  and  I  knew  the  differ- 
ence between  the  reign  of  Christ  in  our  lives  and 
the  reign  of  our  own  bramble  selves,  knew  it,  not 
only  in  exhortation,  the  appeal  of  the  sermon,  but 
in  actual  history,  we  should  not  long  hesitate  in 
our  choice.  But  no  man  is  granted  that  kind  of 
wisdom.  Yet  in  another  sense  we  do  know  the 
difference.  If  we  do  not  have  the  knowledge  of 
experience,  we  have  at  least  the  knowledge  of  con- 
viction. The  question  is,  Will  knowledge  be  turned 
into  power  ?  Shall  we  take  Christ  for  king,  com- 
mitting all  our  interests  and  all  our  destinies  to  Him  ? 
Or,  shall  we  take  our  own  selves  for  king  ?  Must 
Christ  say  for  you  as  He  said  of  the  city  that  He 
loved,  "  If  thou  hadst  but  known  the  things  that  be- 
long to  thy  peace !   But  now  they  are  hid  from  thee ! " 


II 

The  Parable  of  the  Thistle  and  the  Cedar 
2  Kings  xiv.  8-14. 

AMAZIAH,  king  of  Judah,  had  gained  a 
victory  over  Edom  in  the  Yalley  of  Salt, 
where  he  slew  ten  thousand  men  and  took 
the  town  of  Selah.  This  victory  over  the  desert 
tribes  unduly  elated  him,  and  moved  him  to  chal- 
lenge the  king  of  Israel  to  combat.  Because  he 
had  slain  a  few  thousands  in  the  Valley  of  Salt,  he 
thought  he  could  cross  swords  with  the  kingdom 
of  Israel,  then  at  the  height  of  its  godless  splendour 
and  military  power.  He  sent  messengers  to  the 
king  of  Israel,  Joash,  saying :  "  Come,  let  us  look 
one  another  in  the  face."  In  other  words,  "  Let 
us  meet  in  battle  and  see  who  is  stronger."  Joash 
scorned  the  impudent  challenge.  Half  amused, 
half  angTy  at  the  insult,  he  answered  with  the  par- 
able of  The  Thistle  and  the  Cedar.  "  The  thistle 
that  was  in  Lebanon  sent  to  the  cedar  that  was  in 
Lebanon,  saying,  '  Give  thy  daughter  to  my  son  to 
wife '  and  there  passed  by  a  wild  beast  that  was  in 
Lebanon  and  trode  down  the  thistle."  The  cedar 
did  not  deign  to  notice  the  arrogant  proposal  of 
the  thistle.  But  a  wild  beast,  a  prowling  denizen 
of  the  forest,  seeking  after  his  prey,  passed  that 

24 


The  Parable  of  the  Thistle  and  the  Cedar    25 

way  and  set  his  great  paw  upon  the  impudent 
thistle,  and  the  place  that  once  knew  it  knew  it  no 
more  forever.  The  viewless  winds  caught  up  the 
seed  and  fibre  of  the  thistle  and  carried  them 
hither  and  yon.  But  the  tall  cedar,  not  even  be- 
holding the  end  of  the  thistle,  reigned  on  in  soli- 
tary dignity  and  might. 

This  is  one  of  the  shortest  fables  on  record,  and 
one  of  the  most  effective.  It  was  a  crushing  bit  of 
irony.  For  Judah  in  that  day  to  challenge  Israel 
to  combat  was  like  the  thistle  proposing  affinity 
with  the  cedar.  But  Amaziah  did  not  profit  by 
the  lesson.  He  insisted  upon  a  trial  of  strength. 
This  was  granted  him  in  Beth-Shemesh.  And 
Judah  was  put  to  the  worse  before  Israel;  and 
they  fled  every  man  to  their  tents. 

"The  thistle  that  was  in  Lebanon  said  to  the 
cedar  that  was  in  Lebanon."  Both  cedar  and  this- 
tle flourished  in  Lebanon.  In  the  plan  of  God, 
noble  and  ignoble  characters  thrive  side  by  side, 
worship  in  the  same  church,  live  in  the  same  home, 
toil  in  the  same  shop,  travel  on  the  same  train,  and 
pass  on  the  same  street.  Wherever  you  see  a 
stately  cedar  lifting  its  head  above  the  forest,  you 
can  find  the  thorn,  the  thistle,  the  bramble.  There 
are  men  who  are  like  the  cedar ;  they  have  strength 
and  the  beauty  of  dignity.  They  have  vision, 
overtopping  the  other  trees.  They  tower  above 
the  dust,  smoke,  mist,  and  hold  communion  with 
the  lonely  stars.  They  are  far  removed  from  the 
pettiness  and  the  meanness  and  sordidness  which 


26       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

play  so  large  a  part  in  the  lives  of  ordinary  mor- 
tals, and  when  they  fall  they  go  down  with  a 
crash  that  makes  the  earth  shake  and  leave  a 
lonely  place  against  the  sky.  Side  by  side  with 
them  live  men  of  the  order  of  the  thistle — arro- 
gant, presumptuous,  mean,  faultfinding,  back- 
biting, contemptible,  ludicrous  to  everybody  save 
themselves. 

This  thistle  lived  in  the  shadow  of  the  mighty 
cedar,  but  never  recognized  the  difference,  else  it 
would  not  have  made  the  arrogant  proposal  that 
its  son  should  marry  the  cedar's  daughter.  Jesus 
said  to  Philip,  "  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with 
you,  yet  hast  thou  not  known  me,  Philip  ?  "  How 
that  strange  dullness  to  heavenly  presence  and 
character  has  been  handed  down  from  age  to  age. 
To-morrow  there  comes  some  unusual  event;  a 
great  joy,  a  great  sorrow,  a  great  trial ;  we  ask  for 
comfort,  we  seek  for  guidance,  and  we  are  sur- 
prised to  find  the  healing  fountain  flowing  in  the 
very  midst  of  our  life  and  work.  Some  old  father, 
or  mother,  kind  teacher,  faithful  friend,  has  been 
God's  representative  upon  earth,  angels  walking 
about  in  homely  and  common-day  attire  and  dis- 
guise. Then  speak  they  with  a  strange  sadness 
and  gentle  rebuke,  "  Have  I  been  so  long  time 
with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  me  ?  " 

In  the  nave  of  the  old  Abbey  Kirk  at  Haddington 
one  may  read  over  the  grave  of  Jane  Welsh  the  first 
of  many  pathetic  but  regretful  tributes  paid  to  his 
wife  by  Thomas  Carlyle : 


The  Parable  of  the  Thistle  and  the  Cedar    27 

"  In  her  bright  existence  she  had  more  sorrows  than  are 
Common,  but  also  a  soft  invincibility,  a  capacity  of 
Discernment,  and  a  noble  loyalty  of  heart  which  arc 
Rare.     For  40  years  she  was  the  true  and  loving  help- 
Mate  of  her  husband,  and  by  act  and  word  unweariedly 
Forwarded  him  as  none  else  could  in  all  of  worthy  that 
He  did  or  attempted.     She  died  at  London,  21st  April 
1866,  suddenly  snatched  from  him,  and  the  light  of  his 
Life  as  if  gone  out." 

Poor,  stumbling,  lonely,  remorseful  Carlyle ! 
How  often  did  he  mourn  over  that  grave  and 
supplicate  with  unavailing  words  the  dear  shade  of 
her  whom  in  life  he  felt  he  had  neglected  I  Hear, 
cai'eless  soul,  thou  who  art  dealing  with  love  as  if 
it  were  merchandise,  and  with  loved  ones  as  if,  like 
the  poor,  thou  hadst  them  always  with  thee,  this  ad- 
vice of  the  unhappy  sage  of  Chelsea,  "  Cherish  what 
is  dearest  while  you  have  it  near  you,  and  wait  not 
till  it  is  far  away.  Blind  and  deaf  that  we  are ; 
oh,  think,  if  thou  yet  love  anybody  living,  wait  not 
till  death  sweep  down  the  paltry  little  dust  clouds 
and  dissonances  of  the  moment,  and  all  be  at  last  so 
mournfully  clear  and  beautiful  when  it  is  too  late  !  " 

The  great  men  of  the  world  seldom  have  been  so 
confessed  by  their  contemporaries.  Some  of  the 
men,  it  may  be,  that  you  speak  lightly  of  to-day,  your 
children's  children  will  speak  of  with  honour,  and  ask 
theu"  children  to  strive  to  be  like  them.  The  judg- 
ment and  the  discernment  of  the  contemporary  is 
usually  the  judgment  of  the  thistle.  It  was  said  of 
Emerson  that  after  he  had  been  writing  about  the 


28       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

hero  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  he  was  able  to 
recognize  hira  when  he  appeared  on  the  scene- 
John  Brown  of  Harper's  Ferry.  But  he  was  a 
solitary  exception.  John  Brown  became  a  great 
man  after  he  was  hanged;  Lincoln  after  he  was 
shot ;  Jesus  after  He  was  crucified.  "  Of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy  "  is  a  legend  that  might 
be  written  on  the  tomb  of  every  great  man  from 
Samuel  to  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  speaks  of  entertain- 
ing angels  unawares.  This  is  the  common  ex- 
perience of  life.  After  they  are  gone,  faded  away 
on  the  horizon  of  life's  flat  desert,  and  we  are  left 
standing  like  Abraham  beneath  the  quiet  oaks  of 
meditation  and  recollection,  then  we  perceive  that 
angels  have  passed  our  way.  The  earthen  vessel 
stands  unhonoured  and  unappreciated  in  our  homes ; 
but  one  day  death  lifts  its  grim  mallet  and  breaks 
the  vase,  and  we  find  that  it  was  an  alabaster  box 
of  ointment ;  precious,  very  costly.  We  carry  our 
burdens  and  trudge  our  dusty  roads  to  the  Emmaus 
of  our  desires  and  purposes,  and  never  know  that 
he  who  has  companied  with  us  by  the  way  was 
one  who  would  have  been  welcomed  in  the  elect 
company  of  the  children  of  God. 

"  Be  merciful,  O  our  God  ! 
Forgive  the  meanness  of  our  human  hearts, 
That  never,  till  a  noble  soul  departs. 
See  half  the  worth,  or  hear  the  angePs  wings 
Till  they  go  rustling  heavenward  as  he  springs 

Up  from  the  mounded  sod." 


The  Parable  of  the  Thistle  and  the  Cedar    29 

"Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  where  the  Seer's  house 
is,"  said  stalwart  Saul  to  an  old  man  on  the  streets 
of  Zuph.  And  the  old  man  said,  "  I  am  the  Seer." 
Closer  at  hand  than  he  had  dreamed  was  the  Seer 
who  could  tell  Saul  all.  So  seeking  for  our  lost, 
lost  hopes,  lost  joys,  lost  treasures,  lost  enthusiasms, 
lost  innocence,  lost  love,  we  hurry  through  the 
streets  of  life  to  find  some  new  person  and  some 
new  direction,  when  all  the  time  the  Seer  of  God 
is  just  at  hand.  But  alas!  we  know  him  not. 
Your  old  Bible,  your  old  church,  your  old  bedside 
prayer,  your  old  friend,  companion,  wife,  husband, 
father,  mother — real,  discerning,  far-seeing,  wisdom- 
bringing  Seers  of  God  are  they ! 

The  thistle  in  proposing  marriage  with  the  family 
of  the  cedar  is  just  like  man  when  he  flaunts  his 
self-righteousness  in  the  face  of  Almighty  God. 
The  thistle  was  ignorant  of  the  difference  between 
its  prickles  and  the  mighty  cedar.  Man's  ignorance 
of  himself  betrays  him  into  arrogance  and  pre- 
sumptuous sin.  "  Let  us  look  one  another  in  the 
face,"  said  the  upstart  king,  for  he  thought  himself 
equal  to  Israel's  king.  Various  excuses  and  ex- 
planations are  given  by  those  who  deliberately 
reject  the  Christian  revelation.  Some  would  be 
Christians  were  it  not  for  miracles ;  some  were  it 
not  for  Genesis;  some  were  it  not  for  countless 
divisions  of  the  church ;  some  were  it  not  for  the 
inconsistent  persons  in  the  churches ;  some  were  it 
not  for  the  doctrine  of  future  retribution;  some 
were  it  not  for  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement ;  some 


30       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

were  it  not  for  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection; 
some  were  it  not  for  diificulties  and  anachronisms 
in  the  Bible;  and  some  because  they  don't  feel 
ready.  But  go  down  beneath  these  surface  excuses 
and  explanations,  and  there  you  will  find  hiding  in 
its  dark  cellar  the  real  reason  why  this  man  or  that 
man  rejects  the  Christian  revelation — his  own  miser- 
able and  contemptible  pride  and  self-sufficiency. 
They  say  this  and  they  say  that,  but  down  in  their 
inmost  heart  they  say,  "  I  need  no  Saviour.  I 
need  no  atonement.  I  need  no  forgiveness."  The 
thistle  of  human  nature  measures  itself  by  the  side 
of  the  cedar  of  God's  truth  and  God's  Son  and  goes 
away  content  and  satisfied.  There  is  a  generation 
that  is  pure  in  their  own  eyes  and  yet  is  not  washed 
from  their  own  filthiness.  Christ  said,  "  He  that 
willeth  to  do  the  will  of  my  Father  in  heaven  shall 
know  the  doctrine."  There  He  touched  the  pulse 
of  the  religious  problem.  The  question  for  me  is. 
Am  I  going  to  will  to  do  the  will  of  God  ?  Am 
I  going  to  own  His  Sovereignty  and  bow  to  it  and 
accept  His  help  ?  Or  am  I  going  to  match  my 
will  against  His  will  ? 

Take  the  great  and  distinctive  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity and  you  will  see  how  the  only  reason  for 
rejecting  them  lies  in  man's  self-sufficiency  and 
pride.  Christianity  declares  itself  to  be  a  revela- 
tion of  the  will  and  mind  of  God.  Does  man  need 
that  ?  If  he  doesn't  need  it,  then  we  have  made 
the  whole  Christian  system  unnecessary  and  absurd. 
But  does  man  need  a  revelation  ?    Has  he  all  the 


The  Parable  of  the  Thistle  and  the  Cedar    31 

knowledge  and  truth  and  light  that  he  would  like  to 
have  ?  In  a  world  that  is  curtained  with  mystery, 
that  throbs  with  the  mighty  pulsations  of  love  and 
affection,  that  is  vocal  with  the  strange  music  of 
human  joy  and  human  sorrow,  your  life  coming 
you  know  not  whence,  and  passing  you  know  not 
whither,  utterly  unable  to  explain  the  least  thing 
about  yourself,  to  tell  why  the  heart  begins  to  beat, 
or  why  it  rests  forever,  tenting  for  a  little  day  on 
this  brief  island  amid  the  two  eternities,  all  about 
you  the  tokens  of  man's  frailty,  weakness  and 
brevity,  and  everywhere,  in  the  sun  that  lights 
your  way  by  day,  and  in  the  stars  that  light  your 
way  by  night,  in  this  strange  and  intricate  mech- 
anism— tabernacle,  tent,  house — that  we  call  the 
body,  in  the  earth  in  which  you  live,  in  the  sod 
where  you  lay  your  dead,  in  the  heavens  that  drift 
above  your  head — everywhere  the  witness  of  a 
wisdom  and  a  power  that  is  greater  and  vaster 
than  your  own;  are  you,  this  lump  of  deformity 
and  diseases  in  body  and  mind,  going  to  stand  up 
and  say  that  you  have  no  need  of  a  revelation 
from  God  ? 

And  when  that  revelation  tells  you  that  you  are 
weak,  that  you  are  fallen,  that  you  are  sinful ;  do 
you  find  anything  in  your  brief  experience  with 
yourself  and  with  others  that  would  lead  you  to 
deny  this?  And  when  that  Christian  revelation 
presents  to  you  the  Incarnate  God,  God  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  to  Himself,  and  holds  up  be- 
fore you  the  Crucified  Eedeemer,  and  commands 


32       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

you  to  repent,  believe  and  live ;  are  you  going  to 
tell  God  that  you  don't  need  it  ?  If  so,  that  refusal 
and  denial  has  no  basis  in  reason,  fact  or  experience. 
It  rests  upon  human  pride,  upon  the  blindness  and 
ignorance  and  arrogance  of  the  thistle  thinking  its 
one-inch  stem  of  thorns  equal  to  the  one-hundred- 
cubit  cedar. 

The  lines  that  were  most  often  upon  the  lips  of 
the  Sad  Emancipator  were  those  of  "William  Knox : 

*^  Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud? 
Like  a  fast-flitting  meteor,  a  fast-flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passes  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. '^ 

No  ;  no  room  for  pride ;  but  plenty  of  room  for 
humility,  for  abasement,  for  praying  the  publican's 
prayer,  for  singing  the  sinner's  song, — 

^'  When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died, 
My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride." 


Ill 

The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Prisoner 
/  Kings  XX.  J ^-4  J 

ISKAEL  had  just  won  a  great  victory  over  her 
inveterate  enemy,  Benhadad,  king  of  Syria. 
Because  of  the  previous  defeat  in  the  hill 
country,  the  Syrians  fancied  that  a  battle  in  the 
valleys  would  bring  them  victory,  for  they  said, 
"  Their  god  is  a  god  of  the  hills,  therefore  they 
were  stronger  than  we."  But  the  battle  in  the 
plain  proved  even  more  disastrous  than  that  of  the 
hills.  An  hundred  thousand  fell  in  the  combat  and 
the  remaining  twenty  thousand  perished  in  an  earth- 
quake. The  very  stars  in  their  courses  were  fight- 
ing against  Syria.  The  army  had  been  beaten,  but 
the  heart  and  soul  of  that  army  was  still  alive. 
There  are  some  causes  and  some  armies  which  are 
never  beaten  till  the  leader  who  incarnates  them  is 
beaten.  From  his  secret  hiding-place,  Benhadad 
sends  messengers  to  Ahab.  They  find  him  in  high 
feather  over  his  victory.  As  he  surveyed  the  field 
where  so  many  Syrians  had  fallen  and  so  few 
Israelites,  he  was  tempted  to  a  foolish  magna- 
nimity. Instead  of  destroying  Benhadad,  or  at 
least  taking  precaution  to  prevent  his  further  out- 
breaks, he  gave  him  a  ride  in  his  chariot  and  sent 

33 


34       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

him  off  to  Syria  with  a  treaty  of  peace  which  Ben- 
hadad  at  once  proceeded  to  violate. 

"  But  a  certain  man  of  the  sons  of  the  prophets ! " 
One  of  God's  nameless  ambassadors  of  conscience 
was  at  hand  to  rebuke  the  foolish  king  and  pro- 
nounce his  judgment.  As  in  the  parable  of  The 
Ewe  Lamb,  the  plan  is  to  have  the  king  condemn 
himself  by  passing  judgment  on  an  imaginary  case. 
In  the  disguise  of  a  wounded  soldier,  the  man  of 
God  sat  lamenting  by  the  roadside.  As  the  chariot 
of  the  king  rolled  by,  he  sprang  up  with  his  tale  of 
woe.  "  Thy  servant  went  out  into  the  midst  of  the 
battle ;  and,  behold,  a  man  turn^ed  aside  and  brought 
a  man  unto  me,  and  said,  '  Keep  this  man :  if  by 
any  means  he  be  missing,  then  shall  thy  life  be  for 
his  life.'  And  as  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and 
there,  behold,  he  was  gone."  And  the  king  of 
Israel  said  to  him,  "  So  shall  thy  judgment  be  ;  thy- 
self hath  decided  it."  Then  the  man  unwound  the 
bandage  about  his  head  and  the  king  of  Israel  dis- 
cerned that  he  was  of  the  prophets.  With  bowed 
head  and  heavy  heart  he  listened  to  the  word  of 
doom :  ''  Because  thou  hast  let  go  out  of  thy  hand 
the  man  whom  I  devoted  to  destruction,  therefore 
thy  life  shall  be  for  his  life,  and  thy  people  for  his 
people."  And  the  king  of  Israel  went  to  his  house 
heavy  and  displeased.  Oh,  these  nameless  monitors 
who  sit  ever  by  the  roadside  and  wait  for  us  as  we 
return  from  the  fields  of  desire !  How  they  turn 
the  sweets  of  victory  into  bitterness  of  gall !  How 
they  make  the  ivory  palace  of  our  pride  seem  stale, 


The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Prisoner         35^ 

flat  and  unprofitable !  Who  can  penetrate  the  dis- 
guise ?  Who  can  avoid  the  hiding-place  and  wait- 
ing-place of  conscience,  God's  unrelenting  prophet  ? 
Whether  it  be  a  king  who  passes  in  his  chariot 
fresh  from  victory  in  war,  or  a  peasant  with  lowly 
tread,  there  conscience  waits  to  tell  us  of  our  folly 
and  name  our  judgment.  It  is  not  enough  that  the 
battle  has  been  won  and  the  army  beaten.  Con- 
science comes,  not  to  praise  us  for  what  we  have 
done,  but  to  rebuke  us  for  what  we  have  left  un- 
done ;  to  tell  us  that  one  hundred  thousand  slain 
foes  will  not  compensate  for  one  king  of  evil  dis- 
missed in  peace  ;  to  tell  us  that  a  hundred  prayers 
and  gifts  and  deeds  cannot  atone  for  one  act  of  dis- 
obedience, or  stay  the  approaching  hand  of  judg- 
ment. 

Not  the  main  lesson,  but  one  of  the  by-products 
of  this  parable,  is  the  manner  in  which  it  illustrates 
the  danger  of  half-way  measures  with  evil  and  sin. 
Three  years  after  Ahab  let  Benhadad  go  free  and 
sent  him  back  to  his  own  country,  Ahab  and  Je- 
hoshaphat  are  again  at  war  with  him  before  the 
walls  of  Kamoth  Gilead.  Kemembering  the  words 
of  the  man  of  God,  that  the  king  whom  he  had 
let  go  would  one  day  take  his  life,  Ahab  went  into 
battle  in  the  disguise  of  a  common  soldier.  But  a 
certain  man  drew  a  bow  at  a  venture,  and  Ahab 
was  slain.  His  life  was  for  the  life  of  the  man  he 
let  go.  The  conduct  of  Ahab,  in  view  of  the  past 
and  the  present  and  the  future,  was  a  stupendous 
piece   of   folly.    If,    after  Waterloo,  the  Allies, 


36       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

thinking  that  an  emperor  whose  legions  had  been 
crushed  could  never  again  menace  the  peace  of 
Europe,  had  let  N'apoleon  go  free,  or  established 
him  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  their  folly  would 
have  been  of  a  piece  with  that  of  Ahab.  It  was 
sad  to  see  him  digging  in  the  garden  at  Longwood, 
or  standing  on  the  naked  cliff  at  Helena,  musing 
over  the  past,  feeling  himself  only  a  memory,  a 
dead  man  not  yet  buried,  bothered  with  petty  offi- 
cials and  quarrelling  with  his  companions  in  cap- 
tivity. But  it  was  good  for  the  peace  of  Europe. 
It  was  an  instance  where  severity  was  mercy. 
There  are  national  problems  which  now  and  then 
confront  the  statesmen  of  a  nation  and  the  tend- 
ency wiU  always  be  to  half-way  measures  of  com- 
promise. In  our  Civil  War  the  Yalley  of  Virginia 
was  the  granary  of  Lee's  army.  Union  forces 
marched  through  it  and  gained  victories ;  but  the 
crops  grew  again,  the  sheep  and  oxen  and  cattle 
waxed  fat,  and  all  the  resources  of  that  well- 
watered  valley  were  propping  up  the  Confederate 
Government.  Finally  Grant  sent  Hunter  and  then 
Sheridan  into  the  valley  and  told  them  to  burn  it 
out ;  not  to  leave  a  mill-wheel  that  could  turn,  or 
a  barn  that  could  store  the  grain,  or  a  crop  that 
could  feed  the  animals :  to  lay  it  waste,  and  deso- 
late it  so  that  even  a  crow  flying  over  it  would 
have  to  carry  its  own  rations.  A  howl  of  rage 
w^ent  up,  North  and  South,  but  the  torch  of  Sheri- 
dan and  Hunter  did  more  to  bring  the  war  to  a 
close  and  end  the  sufferings  of  North  and  South 


The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Prisoner         37 

than  the  explosion  of  the  shell  or  the  thrust  of  the 
bayonet. 

When  it  becomes  plain  that  a  thing  is  devoted  to 
destruction  by  God,  then  man  had  better  line  up 
on  the  side  of  God.  In  1808  Congress  forbade  the 
further  importation  of  slaves,  thus  recognizing 
that  the  thing  was  wrong  and  dangerous.  But 
for  fifty-three  years  the  nation  fooled  and  compro- 
mised and  debated,  and  then  slavery  had  to  be 
washed  out  in  a  sea  of  blood.  To  right-thinking 
men  and  women  it  must  be  increasingly  apparent 
that  the  Ijguor  tragic  is  a  thing  devoted  by  God  to 
destruction.  If  God's  curse  doesn't  rest  on  it,  then 
God  never  has  and  never  will  curse  an  evil  thing. 
In  the  'forties  and  'fifties  the  danger  was  recog- 
nized in  this  country.  Then  it  would  have  been 
an  easy  matter  to  destroy  the  business.  But  in- 
stead of  that,  States  and  Government  began  to 
regulate,  license,  limit,  compromise,  until  now  hell 
from  beneath  is  stirred  if  you  but  put  your  little 
finger  on  the  business.  Busy  here  and  there  with 
canal-digging  and  road-making  and  financial  re- 
forms, the  Nation  has  let  this  hideous  prisoner, 
potential  with  so  much  damnation  and  woe,  escape 
to  its  stronghold  with  sundry  promises  and  regu- 
lations, only  to  come  back  at  the  return  of  the  year 
with  a  bigger  army  and  renewed  vigour. 

What  is  true  of  man  collectively  is  true  of  man 
as  the  individual.  The  time  to  destroy  sin  and 
crush  evil  habits  is  when  you  have  them  in  your 
power.    If  you  have  had  some  encounter  with  a 


38       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

besetting  sin,  or  evil  habit,  don't  be  content  to  let 
it  go  with  compromise.  God  told  Saul  to  destroy 
Amalek.  Saul  thought  he  was  wiser  than  God 
and  let  some  of  them  escape.  Years  have  passed 
by,  and  Saul,  lying  self-wounded  on  the  field  of 
Gilboa,  called  to  a  man,  "  Stand  upon  me  and  slay 
me."  "So  I  stood  upon  him  and  slew  him,  and  I 
took  the  crown  that  was  on  his  head  and  the  brace- 
let that  was  on  his  arm."  And  that  man  was  an 
Amalekite.  That  is  the  natural  history  of  sin 
when  we  spare  it,  and  treat  it  lightly.  One  day 
it  comes  back  to  find  us  weak,  and  it  stands  upon 
us  and  takes  the  crown  of  manhood  from  our  dis- 
honoured brow.  When  you  deal  with  sin,  deal 
with  it — not  as  an  hypothesis  of  theology — but  as 
a  foe  who  will  one  day  show  you  no  quarter. 

"  As  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there,  be- 
hold he  was  gone."  The  precious  prisoner  escaped 
him  while  he  was  busy  with  other  things.  The 
great  business  of  that  man's  day  was  to  guard  that 
prisoner.  But  he  went  here  and  there,  to  do  this 
and  that,  and  the  prisoner  escaped.  Every  period 
of  life  has  its  irrevocable  and  irreparable.  The 
farmer  who  doesn't  get  his  plough  out  in  March 
and  April  and  turn  up  the  soil,  and  sow  the  seed, 
will  starve  when  December  comes.  There  is  a 
time  to  plant,  and  a  time  to  reap.  There  are 
things  to  be  done  in  March  that  cannot  be  done  in 
December.  Youth  is  a  prisoner  committed  to  our 
keeping  for  only  one  day.  If  we  neglect  to  do 
some  things  in  youth,  train  the  body,  clothe  the 


The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Prisoner         39 

mind,  we  must  pay  for  it  in  after  life.  There  is  an 
angel  who  comes  down  to  stir  the  pool  of  life  in 
the  days  of  youth.  He  who  will  not  step  down 
then,  steps  down  never.  In  the  early  morning, 
after  the  sun  is  up,  the  roses  on  a  June  morning 
will  sparkle  with  a  thousand  diamonds  of  beauty 
and  glory.  In  a  little  moment  the  dew  is  gone, 
and  gone  the  glory  of  it.  At  high  noon  you  may 
take  a  pitcher  of  water  and  pour  it  over  the  rose- 
bush, but  no  matter  how  abundant  the  water,  and 
how  pure  it  may  be,  all  your  pouring  will  never 
bring  back  that  golden  glitter  of  the  short-lived 
dew  of  sunrise.  Kejoice,  O  young  man,  young 
woman,  in  thy  youth  !  Eemember  thy  Creator  in 
the  days  of  youth.  Fit  body,  mind  and  soul  in  the 
days  of  thy  youth.  One  day  you  will  awake  to 
find  youth,  that  elusive  prisoner,  is  gone,  and  gone 
forever. 

^*  Break,  break,  break,  at  the  foot  of  thy  crags, 
OSea! 
But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 
Will  never  come  back  to  me." 

Opportunity  for  doing  good  comes  to  all  of  us, 
but  its  day  is  brief.  No  one  of  us  is  so  limited  in 
sphere  or  so  humble  in  place  but  he  can  shed 
heaven  about  him.  Eecall  for  the  moment  how  it  is 
the  little  kindnesses  and  courtesies  and  thoughtf  ul- 
nesses  which  constitute  the  staple  of  human  happi- 
ness. The  power  lies  within  the  reach  of  us  all, 
but  it  does  not  lie  there  forever,  for  the  simple 


40       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

reason  that  those  to  whom  we  might  do  good  are 
not  always  at  our  hand,  and  we  ourselves  may  sud- 
denly be  called  to  our  account.  Therefore,  redeem 
the  time.  There  is  Jesus  kneeling  in  agony  in 
prayer  in  the  moonlit  shadows  of  Gethsemane,  and 
the  Three  whom  He  had  asked  to  watch  with  Him 
— Peter,  James  and  John — asleep.  '*  Could  ye  not 
watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  "  Just  one  hour !  The 
opportunity  of  serving  Jesus  in  that  way  lasted  just 
one  hour.  They  failed  to  awake  and  use  the  hour, 
and  when  it  was  past,  Jesus  came  to  them  and  find- 
ing them  still  sleeping,  said  sadly,  "  Sleep  on  now 
and  take  your  rest !  Whether  you  wake  or  sleep 
makes  no  difference  to  me.  Your  hour  of  holy 
service  and  fidelity  is  past.  Sleep  on  now  !  "  Do 
we  not  deal  with  our  friends  and  beloved  and  fel- 
low men  as  these  disciples  did  with  Jesus  ?  We 
sleep  as  if  we  could  have  the  same  chance  to-mor- 
row. The  one  with  whom  you  ought  to  watch,  by 
whose  side  you  ought  to  stand,  at  this  very  hour 
may  be  kneeling  in  his  garden,  distilling  from  his 
brow  the  drops  of  agony,  and  you  asleep,  careless, 
indifferent.  You  are  busy  here  and  there,  and 
while  you  are  busy  the  precious  prisoner  is  gone, 
and  all  Eternit}^  can  never  bring  him  back.  Oh, 
do  not  live  and  do  not  work,  and  do  not  love  as 
though  you  were  fixed  in  your  present  state  and 
relationship  for  Eternity,  and  not  for  a  little  seg- 
ment of  time  between  the  two  eternities.  Whatso- 
ever is  in  your  heart  and  mind  to  do,  and  to  say, 
and  to  be,  do  it,  say  it,  be  it  now  !    To-morrow 


The  Parable  of  the  Lost  Prisoner         41 

you  may  take  up  the  morning  paper  and  find  that 
he  is  gone  and  your  chance  is  gone.  To-morrow 
you  may  call  and  none  will  answer.  To-morrow 
the  still  face,  the  vacant  place,  the  unlifted  book, 
the  unfinished  letter,  will  speak  to  you  with  a  re- 
buke that  your  vexed  soul  will  scarce  be  able  to 
bear : — "  Sleep  on  no\y  !•  Sleep,  sleep  forever  !  You 
had  it  in  your  heart,  you  meant  to  do  it,  you  meant 
to  say  it,  ^But  as  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and 
then^,  behold,  he  was  gone  ! '  " 

*'  I  did  not  know  how  short  your  Jay  would  be  ! 
I  had  you. safe,  and  words  could  wait  awhile — 
E'en  when  your  eyes  !tegged  tenderness  of  me, 
Behind  their  smile. 

*^  And  now  for  you,  so  dark,  so  long,  j^ight ! 
I  speak,  but  on  my  knees,"  unheard,  alone — 
"What  words  were  these  to  make  a^ghort  day  iJright 

''  —If  I  had  known !     -V-*^    '    /*  ^      *'      • 

Ah,  love — if  I  had.khown  ! ''^  .  - 

^  •   *      ^ 

One  final  application  of  this  pai'able.     This  life  •, 

is  a  probation  for  the  next.  Time,  is  a 'tri^l  for 
eternity^  That  is  the  ^teaching,  bi^  Christianity.  ^ 
IN'either  you  nor  I  can  prc^ve  that  it  is  so  ;  but  if  it 
isn't  so,  then  worship,  prayers  and  serm9n^  are  all 
a  farce.  Christ  must  have  knowUj  and  if  you  go 
through  His  teachings  you  will  find  that  He  al- 
ways dwells  on  that,  that  this  life  is  the  probation 
for  the  next.  If  I  could  show  you  that  your  period 
of  probation  would  come  to  an  end  this  night  at  six 


42       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

o'clock,  and  when  I  came  again  to  this  pulpit  for 
the  evening  service  you  would  be  in  eternity,  what 
now  would  be  your  thoughts  ?  You,  like  all  others, 
would  think  of  things  done  that  you  would  either 
do  differently  or  not  at  all ;  of  things  not  done  that 
you  would  do ;  of  friends  from  whom  you  are 
alienated  and  to  whom  you  would  seek  to  be  recon- 
ciled ;  of  little  debts  of  love,  of  kindness  that  you 
would  make  haste  to  pay.  But  the  greatest  thing 
that  could  engage  your  mind  would  be  this  :  How 
do  I  stand  in  regard  to  the  offer  of  salvation  and 
eternal  life  which  God  has  made  to  me  through 
Jesus  Christ  ?  Then  you  would  not  be  too  busy 
here  and  there  to  neglect  to  do  what  Christ  said 
every  wise  man  ought  to  do — Seek  first  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  His  righteousness.  Between  now 
and  six  o'clock  this  evening  is  six  hours.  But 
whether  it  be  six  hours,  or  six  days,  or  six  years, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  your  probation 
will  end,  and  the  chance  and  trial  of  life  will  be 
over.  Do  I  speak  to  some  who  have  been  busy 
here  and  there,  careless  of  the  great  thing  ?  Ee- 
member  that  between  you  and  eternity  there  is 
nothing  but  time,  which  is  of  all  things  the  frailest. 
Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found.  Call 
upon  Him  while  He  is  near ! 


IV 

The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb 
2  Samuel  xii.  1-2 j 

ALEXANDER  of  Macedon  was  painted  with 
his  hand  resting  on  his  face,  as  if  in  reverie. 
But  the  real  purpose  was  to  hide  the  ugly 
scar  on  his  cheek.  The  German  emperor  is  photo- 
graphed and  painted  standing  in  a  position  so  that 
his  withered  arm  will  not  appear.  But  in  the  Bible 
men  are  painted  just  as  they  are.  No  scar,  how- 
ever hideous,  no  ugly  deformity  is  omitted.  When 
Nathan  rebuked  the  king  for  his  sin,  he  told  him 
that  what  he  had  done  would  give  occasion  to  the 
enemies  of  the  Lord  to  blaspheme.  It  gave  occa- 
sion then,  and  it  gives  occasion  now.  Like  vultures 
over  the  carrion,  the  enemies  of  God  have  wheeled 
and  screamed  over  the  fallen  king.  But  had  it  not 
been  that  God  wanted  to  teach  judgment  and  peni- 
tence and  forgiveness,  we  should  never  have  heard 
of  the  fall  of  David.  He  was  a  man  after  God's 
heart,  and  yet  the  thing  that  David  had  done  dis- 
pleased the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  sent  Nathan.  For 
David's  good,  and  our  own,  this  parable  is  told. 

*^  Not  in  their  brightness,  but  their  earthly  stains, 
Are  the  true  seed  vouchsafed  to  earthly  eyes, 
And  saints  are  lowered  that  the  world  may  rise." 
43 


44       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

Although  a  sharp  dart  for  a  heinous  sin,  the 
parable  has  a  tenderness  and  winsomeness  in  it 
which  might  make  one  think  that  He  who  taught 
in  parables  had  spoken  it  Himself.  The  first 
chapter  in  David's  fall  w^as  bad  enough.  He  had 
taken  the  wife  of  the  brave  and  loyal  Uriah  and 
that  created  conditions  that  made  it  expedient  for 
him  to  go  the  next  step  and  cover  up  his  sin  by 
taking  the  life  of  the  faithful  and  unsuspecting 
soldier.  Failing  to  make  Uriah  his  tool  by  flattery 
and  intoxication,  he  plots  for  his  death.  Sin  is 
like  some  drugs — cumulative.  Take  them  to-day, 
you  must  have  them,  and  in  larger  quantity,  to- 
morrow. One  sin  opens  the  gate  and  prepares  the 
way  for  the  next.  Herod  slew  James,  and  when 
he  saw  that  it  pleased  the  people,  he  stretched  forth 
his  hand  to  kill  Peter  also.  The  plan  of  David 
reveals  a  strange  state  of  mind.  He  was  king  of 
Israel  and  could  have  taken  the  life  of  Uriah  at 
any  moment  he  desired  it.  But  the  light  of  truth 
and  conscience  had  not  deserted  him.  He  wanted 
Uriah  to  die,  and  yet  realized  that  Uriah  did  not 
deserve  to  die.  Therefore,  he  devised  a  plan  that 
would  end  the  life  of  Uriah  and  bring  relief  to 
David,  and  yet  David  would  not  have  lifted  his 
hand  against  him.  In  the  siege  of  this  Ammonite 
stronghold  of  Kabbah  Joab  was  to  set  Uriah  in 
the  forefront  of  the  hottest  battle.  At  a  pre- 
arranged signal,  those  fighting  with  him  were  to 
retire  suddenly  and  leave  him  to  his  foes.  Thus 
gallantly  fighting   for  his  king,  never  suspecting 


The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb  43; 

the  wicked  and  treacherous  plot,  Uriah  died,  and 
his  wife  became  David's  wife.  O  David,  why  didst 
thou  not  die,  fall  thyself  in  battle,  before  this  dread- 
ful night!  The  glory  and  the  splendour  of  thy 
reign  are  past ;  now  comes  the  eclipse  and  the 
night.  If  thou  hadst  died  before  this  double  crime, 
thy  name  would  have  come  down  to  us  unstained. 
But  now,  sufferings  and  misfortunes  await  thee. 
Never  shall  the  sword  depart  from  thy  house.  If 
thou  hadst  only  died  before  thine  eyes  beheld 
Bathsheba,  before  thou  didst  write  the  letter  that 
murdered  Uriah,  thou  wouldst  never  have  seen 
incest  among  thine  own  children ;  Tamar  dis- 
honoured and  Amnon  murdered ;  the  bloody 
dagger  of  Absalom  would  never  have  passed  like 
a  curse  before  thine  eyes ;  never  wouldst  thou  have 
forsaken  thy  capital  to  hear  the  curses  and  execra- 
tions of  Shimei,  and  never  wouldst  thou  have  cried 
out,  there  on  thy  face  in  the  chamber  over  the 
gate,  with  the  tears  bathing  thine  aged  cheeks, — 
"  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  Absalom  !  Would 
I  had  died  for  thee,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son !  " 
But  that's  an  afterthought.  In  order  to  say 
when  it  had  been  good  for  a  man  to  die,  you  must 
know  the  whole  history  of  his  life.  The  im- 
penetrable and  not  to  be  lifted  veil  hangs  between 
me  and  to-morrow.  What  does  that  to-morrow 
have  in  store  for  me  ?  What  of  pain  ?  What  of 
joy  ?  What  of  fame  ?  What  of  sin  ?  What  of 
shame  ?  After  that  to-morrow  has  passed,  will  it 
have  been  such  a  day  that  will  make  me  wish  that 


46       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

I  had  died  before  it  dawned  ?  I  waive  the  matter 
of  pain  and  loss  and  sorrow  and  loneliness,  for  that 
can  bring  no  bitter  self-reproach.  But  what  of  life 
in  its  tragic  possibilities  for  good  and  evil  ?  Ought 
it  not  to  soberize  us  to  think  that  there  are  many 
who  will  live  to-day  and  to-morrow  so  that  the 
close  of  to-morrow  will  make  them  wish  that  life 
had  ended  for  them  this  morning  ? 

"  David  sent  and  took  her  home  to  his  house  and 

she  became  his  wife."    But !  "  the  thing  that 

David  had  done  displeased  the  Lord."  In  vain  are 
all  your  honours  and  achievements  and  pleasures, 
if  at  the  end  there  must  be  attached  this  grim 
addendum,  "But  the  thing  displeased  the  Lord." 
Did  it  displease  David  ?  It  is  foolish  to  suppose 
that  David  never  had  a  moment  of  remorse  or  mis- 
giving. Too  many  Psalms  written  and  too  many 
hours  spent  with  God  for  that.  The  savage  and 
atrocious  vengeance  that  he  took  upon  the  conquered 
Ammonite  stronghold,  causing  the  inhabitants  to 
be  dragged  under  harrows,  and  to  be  driven  through 
the  furnaces,  shows  an  irritability  fed  by  the  fuel 
of  an  uneasy  conscience.  When  people  are  mean 
and  ugly  and  irritable,  the  causes  are  not  always 
physical  and  gastronomical ;  they  may  lie  far 
hidden  in  the  recesses  of  a  disturbed  conscience. 

But  months  passed  by,  and  David  showed  no 
sign  of  repentance.  In  the  cares  of  state  it  may 
be  that  he  had  pushed  aside  the  first  interrogations 
of  conscience.  But  the  Lord  sent  Nathan.  He 
might  have  openly  named  the  sin  of  David  and 


The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb  47 

pronounced  the  judgment,  but  he  chose  the  better 
way  of  describing  it,  and  then  letting  David  judge 
himself.  He  makes  David  pass  sentence  upon  an 
imaginary  case,  and  then  shows  him  that  it  is  his 
own  case.  "  There  were  two  men  in  the  city,  one 
rich  and  one  poor.  The  rich  man  had  exceeding 
many  flocks  and  herds;  but  the  poor  man  had 
nothing  save  one  little  ewe  lamb,  which  he  had 
bought  and  nourished  up ;  and  it  grew  up  together 
with  him  and  with  his  children ;  it  did  eat  of  his 
own  morsel,  and  drank  of  his  own  cup,  and  lay  in 
his  bosom,  and  was  unto  him  as  a  daughter." 
What  a  picture  of  helplessness,  preciousness  and 
innocence !  "  And  there  came  a  traveller  unto  the 
rich  man,  and  he  spared  to  take  of  his  own  flock, 
and  of  his  own  herd,  to  dress  it  for  the  wayfaring 
man  that  was  come  unto  him,  but  took  the  poor 
man's  lamb,  and  dressed  it  for  the  man  that  was 
come  unto  him."  The  tale  would  have  moved  a 
heart  of  ice,  and  David's  generous  nature  kindled 
at  the  recital.  His  hand  grasped  his  sword,  and 
his  eye  flashed  fire  as  he  exclaimed,  "  The  man  that 
hath  done  this  is  worthy  to  die ! "  Then  Nathan 
applied  the  parable — "  Thou  art  the  man ! " 

The  most  heinous  sin  is  the  sin  of  heartlessness. 
David's  anger  rises  against  this  man,  and  God's 
anger  rises  against  David,  for  the  reason  that 
David  himself  gives — "  Because  he  had  not  pity  ! " 
David  knew  that  he  was  a  murderer  and  an  adul- 
terer. But  he  had  never  yet  accused  himself,  or 
been  accused,  of  being  a  man  without  pity.    He 


48       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

had  forgiven  Saul  and  showed  mercy  unto  his 
helpless  household.  But  now  Nathan  lifted  the 
disguise,  and  he  saw  himself  a  cruel,  pitiless  mon- 
ster. "With  palaces  and  armies  and  wives  and  serv- 
ants, he  had  taken  all  that  Uriah  had,  what  was 
to  him  all  that  the  ewe  lamb  was  to  the  poor  man. 
In  the  most  terrible  description  of  judgment  in  the 
Bible,  Dives  in  hell,  the  rich  man  is  set  forth  as  a 
man  who  is  punished  because  he  had  no  pity ;  he 
let  the  beggar  lie  unheeded  at  the  gate.  Sin  is 
cruelty,  it  matters  not  in  what  garb  it  parades. 
There  will  be  the  bitterness  of  your  remorse,  and 
the  fires  of  your  judgment,  in  the  recollection  or 
the  realization  that  in  thought,  or  word,  or  deed 
you  have  had  no  pity.  Pity  is  no  idle  passing 
sentimentalism.  It  is  the  surest  path  to  love,  and 
where  love  is  there  can  be  no  injustice  and  no 
cruelty  and  no  judgment.  A  moment's  passing 
pity  for  the  simple,  brave  soldier  whose  wife  he 
proposed  to  take,  and  whose  life  he  must  now  have, 
would  have  saved  David  from  this  black  night  of 
sin.  Can  you  name  a  single  sin,  of  any  kind,  of 
any  form,  that  would  not  be  left  uncommitted,  did 
the  sinner  but  look  at  that  sin  through  the  eyes 
of  pity  ?  Would  a  man  get  drunk,  would  he  lie, 
would  he  slander,  would  he  speak  harshly,  would 
he  judge  unkindly,  would  he  torture,  would  he 
defile  the  body,  if  he  were  guided  by  the  hand  of 
pity  ?  How  about  stealing  ?  Suppose  your  chil- 
dren are  starving,  and  you  rob  the  bank  or  the 
store  to  feed  them  ?    Is  not  that  a  case  where  pity 


The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb  49 

is  the  father  to  the  deed  ?  But  the  next  day  when 
your  wife  looks  into  your  face,  she  looks  into  the 
face  of  a  thief ;  when  your  children  take  you  by 
the  hand,  they  take  the  hand  of  a  thief.  Did  you 
really  pity  them  when  you  stole  the  money  or  the 
bread?  O  Christ,  Master  of  all  compassion,  do 
Thou  surround  us  with  a  wall  of  pity,  so  that  no 
evil  thing  may  come  in  to  curse  our  lives  with  its 
blackness  and  its  woe ! 

It  is  easy  to  condemn  in  others  what  we  con- 
done in  ourselves.  It  is  possible  to  condemn  and 
hate  sin  in  the  abstract,  and  love  and  practice  it  in 
the  concrete.  It  is  possible  to  confess  that  you  are 
a  sinner  and  yet  not  confess  your  sin.  David 
flamed  with  hot  anger  when  he  heard  Nathan's 
tale  of  the  cruel  rich  man.  The  man  who  had 
done  it  ought  to  die.  But  David  had  done  the 
same  thing,  only  he  had  taken  a  man's  life  instead 
of  a  sheep.  When  we  look  at  others'  faults,  our 
eyes  have  a  strange  magnifying  effect ;  but  when 
we  turn  the  glass  on  ourselves,  it  reduces  and  min- 
imizes our  sins.  We  see  extenuating  circumstances, 
and  our  seLf-love  weaves  a  veil  of  embroidery 
which  hides  the  corruption  within.  Men  can  wax 
eloquent  over  world  wrongs,  social  wrongs,  and 
never  imagine  that  in  their  own  homes  they  are 
tyrants  and  heartless  despots.  Just  as  some  loathed 
disease  is  less  tolerable  when  seen  in  another  than 
in  ourselves,  so  sin  looks  worse  in  my  neighbour 
than  it  does  in  me.  Men  are  like  Swift's  Yahoos 
who  hated  one  another  more  than  they  did  any 


50       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

different  species  of  animals;  "and  the  reason 
usually  assigned  was  the  odiousness  of  theu^  own 
shapes,  which  all  could  see  in  the  rest,  but  not  in 
themselves."  As  Jesus  put  it,  "Thou  fool!  first 
take  the  beam  out  of  your  own  eye,  and  then  pass 
judgment  upon  the  mote  in  thy  brother's  eye." 

*^  O  wad  some  Power  the  giftie  gie  us 
To  see  ourselves  as  ithers  see  us  ! 
It  wad  frae  mony  a  blunder  free  us, 
An'  foolish  notion. '^ 

When,  in  that  play  within  the  play,  the  assas- 
sin poured  the  poison  into  the  sleeper's  ear,  the 
guilty  king  rose  up  in  terror,  for  he  saw  just  what 
Hamlet  intended  he  should  see,  his  own  crime. 
How  was  it  possible  for  guilty  David  to  have 
missed  the  point  of  the  parable  and  not  to  have 
known  who  was  meant  by  the  rich  man  and  the 
poor  man  and  the  ewe  lamb  ?  Not  until  the  sword 
was  a  hairbreadth  from  the  heart  did  he  know 
that  it  was  meant  for  him.  If  David  had  been  a 
hardened  sinner,  we  would  not  wonder.  But  he 
was  a  man  whose  heart  had  been  right  with  God, 
alive  to  things  that  were  good  and  evil.  His  case 
presents  an  example  of  how  a  man,  familiar  with 
the  moral  law,  and  accustomed  to  hear  its  blessing 
and  penalties,  may  be  blinded  to  his  own  faults.  The 
Thirty-second  Psalm,  supposed  to  have  been  written 
after  David  received  pardon,  describes  for  us  the 
hot  and  fevered  restlessness  of  a  man  who  tries  to 
hide  his  sin.     He  knows  no  peace  until  pardon 


The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb  5 1 

comes  after  confession.  But  that  is  the  recollec- 
tion or  musing  of  an  awakened  conscience.  There 
was  a  time  when  his  sin  gave  him  no  trouble.  He 
was  not  tossing  on  a  sleepless  bed,  nor  stuug  by 
the  whips  and  scorns  of  conscience.  Sin  can  anaes- 
thetize conscience.  One  of  the  results  of  evil-doing 
is  the  deadening  of  one's  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
David's  own  conscience  did  not  convict  him.  He 
could  listen  to  the  parable  of  Nathan  without  a 
tremor  of  self-condemnation.  His  conscience  was 
in  a  deep  sleep.  Why  does  man  need  a  revelation  ? 
Why  does  man  need  a  church?  Why  does  man 
need  a  Bible  ?  Why  does  man  need  a  Kathan, 
preacher,  priest,  messenger,  to  tell  him  what  is  in 
that  Bible  and  that  revelation?  Because  of  the 
veil  of  blindness  which  sin  has  drawn  over  his 
eye ;  because  of  the  stupor  into  which  sin  has  cast 
his  conscience.  "I  had  not  known  sin  except 
through  the  law  "  and  I  had  not  known  the  law 
except  it  had  been  given  and  declared  unto  me. 
You  trust  in  your  own  conscience,  but  it  may  be  as 
scarred  as  was  the  conscience  of  David.  Search  your 
conscience  by  the  light  of  God's  word.  Let  God's 
candle  down  into  the  hidden  places  of  the  heart.  I 
wonder  if  it  was  after  this  experience  with  sins  and 
conscience  that  David  said,  "  Search  me,  O  God,  and 
try  my  thoughts.  Know  me,  and  try  my  heart,  and 
see  if  there  be  any  evil  way  in  me.  Who  can  dis- 
cern his  errors  ?  Cleanse  thou  me  from  secret  sins." 
This  would  be  a  melancholy  tale,  fitted  only  to 
harrow  the  feelings  and  open  old  wounds  to  bleed 


52       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

again,  were  it  not  for  the  final  issue.  And  David 
said,  "I  have  sinned."  And  Nathan  said,  "The 
Lord  hath  put  away  thy  sin."  Now  the  storm  has 
passed  and  the  rainbow  of  mercy  spans  the  heaven. 
If  you  say,  "  I  have  done  a  wrong  thing,  an  evil 
thing.  I  have  committed  a  crime,"  no  answer 
comes  from  the  mercy  seat  of  God.  But  when 
you  say,  "  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord,"  when 
you  relate  your  offense  to  Him  who  is  the  source 
of  all  justice  and  mercy  and  righteousness,  then 
quick  as  the  hills  give  back  their  echoes,  quick  as 
the  sun  comes  through  an  open  window,  God's  for- 
giveness comes  down  to  heal  the  soul.  That  for- 
giveness has  been  prepared  for  us  from  before  the 
foundations  of  the  world,  for  the  Lamb  was  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  Divine  plans 
and  agencies  have  announced  it  to  men,  and  it  will 
take  the  immeasurable  stretches  of  Eternity  to  ap- 
preciate to  the  full  its  beauty  and  power;  but 
quicker  than  the  eye  can  flash,  faster  than  the 
heart  can  beat,  it  comes  to  you  when  you  seek  it. 
"  Because  the  quick  chemistries  of  grace  take  our 
slow  study  a  lifetime — nay,  an  Eternit}^ — to  under- 
stand, let  us  not  forget  that  it  takes  God  but  a  mo- 
ment to  work  these  beautiful  combinations,  and 
create  the  strange  new  life  whose  power  is  folded 
up  within  them."  It  is  this  that  makes  the  Gospel 
good  tidings.  It  is  a  morning  note  of  joy.  It 
sounds  the  reveille  and  resurrection  of  the  soul.  It 
chants  the  return  of  the  prodigal.  It  breaks  the 
bonds  of  the  prisoner.    There  is  joy  in  heaven  over 


The  Parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb  53 

one  sinner  that  repenteth,  and  joy  in  the  heart  of 
him  who  is  forgiven.  Blessed  is  the  man  whose 
transgression  is  forgiven.  If  we  confess  our  sins, 
He  is  just  and  faithful  to  forgive  us.  Christianity, 
after  all,  is  a  religion  for  sinners,  and  only  those 
who  are  willing  to  confess  themselves  as  such  are 
permitted  to  enter  into  its  joy.  In  his  "  Seven 
Great  Statesmen"  Andrew  White  tells  of  the 
death  of  Hugo  Grotius.  It  is  a  recital  that  touches 
the  deep  places  of  the  heart.  On  his  way  back 
from  Sweden  the  ship  on  which  Grotius  was 
travelling  was  wrecked  on  the  Pomeranian  coast. 
Battered  by  the  elements,  he  managed  to  get  as  far 
as  Rostok,  and  there  the  famous  scholar  lay  down 
to  die.  The  beacon  light  that  had  illuminated  the 
darkness  of  his  age  was  soon  to  be  quenched  in  the 
smoke  of  death.  The  pastor  of  the  Lutheran  church, 
learning  of  his  presence,  came  in  to  see  him.  He 
made  no  effort  to  wrestle  with  the  great  statesman, 
but  simply  read  to  him  our  Saviour's  Parable  of  the 
Publican  and  the  Pharisee,  ending  with  the  words, 
"  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner  !  "  At  that  the 
dying  sage  opened  his  eyes  and  exclaimed,  "  That 
publican.  Lord,  am  I ! "  Until  we  are  ready  to 
make  a  like  confession  Christianity  is  a  closed  book, 
a  forbidden  garden.  Grotius,  the  poor  Publican, 
wicked  David,  stainless  Paul, — all  made  that  prayer, 
and  making  it,  passed  into  the  City  of  Forgiveness 
and  Peace.  Without  that  prayer,  Christianity  may 
be  a  history,  a  philosophy,  a  code,  but  not  a  re- 
ligion that  saves. 


The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of  Tekoah 
2  Samuel  xiv,  i-2/i. 

WE  come  now  to  the  greatest  of  the  par- 
ables of  the  Old  Testament.  I  call  it 
the  greatest,  not  because  it  is  superior 
in  form  and  directness.  It  has  not  the  winsome- 
ness  of  the  parable  told  by  JS'athan,  nor  the  biting 
irony  of  Jotham's  fable.  But  it  stands  first  in  the 
chief  thought  which  it  brings  to  our  consideration 
— the  way  in  which  God  has  devised  means  to 
reconcile  the  world  to  Himself. 

When  David  confessed  his  sin,  the  Lord  forgave 
him.  INTathan  said  to  him,  "The  Lord  hath  put 
away  thy  sin.  But  the  sword  shall  never  depart 
from  thy  house."  David's  sin  was  forgiven,  but  he 
had  to  suffer  for  his  sin.  The  results  of  sin  were 
not  cancelled.  David  could  repent  and  confess, 
but  there  was  one  thing  that  he  could  not  do ;  he 
could  not  stop  the  swords  of  suffering  and  woe  that 
he  had  loosed  from  their  scabbards.  The  first  one 
to  feel  the  anguish  of  those  swords  of  retribution 
was  the  one  in  all  the  world  the  most  innocent — 
the  little  child.  "  And  the  Lord  smote  the  child." 
It  was  as  if  He  had  put  the  sword  in  David's  own 
hand,  and  had  said,  "  Smite  the  child  !  "    That  was 

54 


The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of  Tekoah     ^^ 

only  the  first  drop  in  the  cup  of  bitterness  that 
David    had    brewed   for  himself.    The  two  sins 
which  had  disgraced  him  were  to  reproduce  them- 
selves in  his  favourite  sons,  Amnon  and  Absalom. 
Those   names    were   sad    misnomers   for  David. 
Amnon    means    "faithful,"  and    Absalom,    "the 
peace  of  his  father."    Oh,  bitter  disappointment! 
When  Amnon  was  born,  David  named  him  "  Faith- 
ful," for  he  was  filled  with  the  joy  of  having  a  son 
who  should  be  faithful  and  loyal  to  his  father  and 
to  his  father's  God.     He  named  the  other  "  Peace 
of  his  Father,"  for  he  looked  forward  to  the  days 
when  this  son  should  be  the  peace  of  his  declining 
days.     See  how  his  dreams  came  true.    There  is 
Amnon,  a  filthy  wretch,  faithless  even  to  the  ordi- 
nary standards  of  decency,  cut  down  by  his  broth- 
er's sword.     There  is  Absalom,  anything  but  the 
peace  of  his  father,  born  not  to  bring  peace  but  a 
sword,  now   an   outlaw  beyond  the  Jordan,  and 
when  he  comes  home,  it  will  be  only  to  fill  the  last 
days  of  his  father  with  humiliation  and  suffering. 
When  all  these  troubles  came  upon  him,  David  re- 
called the  words  of  the  prophet  who  brought  him 
the  promise  of  forgiveness,  "  But  the  sword  shall 
never  depart  from  thy  house."    There  are  things 
which  even  the  forgiven  man  cannot  undo,  any 
more  than  you  cast  a  stone  into  a  pool,  and  then 
with  your  hand  stay  the  ever-multiplying  circles. 
We  live  in  a  world  of  laws  that  cannot  be  trifled 
with.     "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  also  shall 
he  reap."    David  sowed  shame,  appetite  and  mur- 


56       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

der,  and  one  by  one  they  come  back  on  his  head. 
"We  recognize  this  law  and  own  its  justice,  but  too 
often  our  lives  are  so  ordered  that  we  are  as  men 
that  expect  that  our  lives  and  our  deeds  will  be  ex- 
ceptions to  the  general  law.  With  God  there  is 
mercy  and  plenteous  redemption.     But  the  Sword  ! 

'*  Wounds  of  the  soul,  though  healed,  will  ache, 
The  reddening  scars  remain 

And  make  confession  ; 
Lost  innocence  returns  no  more. 
We  are  not  what  we  were 

Before  transgression.^' 

That  sword  was  now  piercing  the  unhappy  king's 
heart  as  he  walked  to  and  fro  on  the  walls  of  his 
palace  at  Jerusalem,  and  looked  wistfully  off 
towards  the  country  that  lay  beyond  the  Jordan. 
Over  there,  dead  or  alive,  was  the  most  precious 
possession  that  David  had.  Absalom  was  there. 
It  was  three  years  since  David  had  seen  him.  Be- 
cause of  the  wrong  done  his  sister  Tamar,  Absalom 
took  the  law  in  his  own  hands  and  murdered 
Amnon  at  a  banquet.  Now  he  was  an  exile  and 
an  outlaw  in  the  land  of  the  king  of  Geshur.  His 
crime  demanded  some  kind  of  punishment.  David 
and  all  the  court  felt  that.  He  was  a  criminal,  a 
fratricide,  but  he  was  David's  son,  and  that  made 
all  the  difference  in  the  world.  All  the  pathos  of 
human  nature  runs  through  this  affection  which 
David  had  for  the  brilliant  blackguard,  Absalom. 
He  could  no  more  be  at  ease  with  Absalom  a 


The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of  Tekoah     57 

roaming  fugitive,  than  he  could  be  happy  when 
Ahimaaz  brought  him  the  tidings  that  Absalom 
had  been  slain  in  battle.  In  his  heart  there  is  a 
conflict  between  the  instinct  for  justice  and  natural 
affection.  Judgment  said,  "  Absalom,  you  have 
sinned  ;  you  have  slain  your  own  brother ;  pay  the 
penalty.  Eemain  in  banishment."  But  love  said, 
"  Absalom,  come  home,  come  home  !  Without 
thee  the  feast  is  cheerless !  Without  thee  the 
halls  are  silent !  Without  thee  how  poor  is  the 
shining  armour  and  mighty  array  of  war  !  Other 
sons  are  mine,  but  there  is  only  one  Absalom ! 
Absalom,  with  all  thy  faults  and  sins,  thy  pride 
and  waywardness,  come  home !  "  '*  And  the  soul 
of  king  David  longed  to  go  forth  unto  Absalom." 

With  all  his  gruffness  and  abruptness  of  manner 
the  captain  of  the  guard,  Joab,  had  a  very  delicate 
appreciation  of  the  workings  of  a  man's  heart, 
especially  the  heart  of  David.  He  saw  that  David 
was  sad  and  melancholy,  forgetful  of  the  affairs  of 
state  because  of  the  absence  of  Absalom.  He  did 
not  dare  bluntly  to  tell  the  king  to  bring  the  exile 
home,  for  he  knew  that  David  had  regard  for  the 
law  of  God  and  the  realm.  He  must  be  appealed 
to  in  some  other  way.  Therefore  Joab  sends  for 
a  wise  woman  of  Tekoah. 

There  are  some  things  that  a  woman  can  do 
much  better  than  a  man.  If  an  appeal  is  to  be 
made  to  the  emotions,  get  a  wise  woman.  Joab 
sent  to  Tekoah  for  a  wise  woman,  not  altogether  a 
witch,  but  a  clever  sort  of  diviner,  or  soothsayer. 


58       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

It  is  one  of  the  terms  that  has  survived  through  all 
the  periods  of  man's  history,  for  in  continental 
countries  there  is  a  sign  which  confronts  one  every- 
where, "  sage  femme?''  The  crafty  Joab  told  her 
what  she  was  to  do  and  what  she  was  to  say.  As 
in  the  parable  of  Nathan  and  also  that  of  the  Lost 
Prisoner,  the  plan  is  to  have  the  king  pass  sentence 
on  a  fictitious  case,  and  then  show  him  that  his  own 
case  is  the  same.  But  Nathan  came  to  rouse  the 
conscience  of  the  king  against  his  feelings;  here 
the  purpose  is  to  rouse  the  feelings  of  the  king 
against  his  conscience. 

As  a  woman  that  had  long  mourned  for  the 
dead  she  appeared  before  the  seat  of  David.  The 
king  asked  her  the  cause  of  her  sorrow,  and  she 
then  told  her  parable  and  played  her  part.  She  was 
a  widow  with  two  sons.  The  sons  had  quarrelled 
together  in  the  field  and,  since  there  was  none  to 
part  them,  one  slew  the  other.  Now  the  relatives 
were  demanding  that  in  keeping  with  law  and 
custom  the  remaining  son  pay  for  his  deed  with  his 
life.  "  So  shall  they  quench  my  coal  which  is  left, 
and  shall  not  leave  to  my  husband  either  name 
or  remembrance  on  earth."  David's  answer  was 
in  keeping  with  his  generous,  impulsive  nature. 
"  As  the  Lord  liveth,  there  shall  not  one  hair  of 
thy  son  fall  to  the  ground  ! "  Having  led  him  to 
commit  himself  that  far,  the  woman  with  wonder- 
ful tact  and  graciousness  of  manner  proceeded  to 
make  the  application  of  the  parable.  David  had 
two  sons  just  like  her  own.     One  had  killed  the 


The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of  Tekoah     59 

other,  and  justice  demanded  the  exile  or  the  punish- 
ment of  the  offender.  If  David  could  set  aside  the 
law  in  the  case  of  her  son,  why  could  he  not  do  it 
in  the  case  of  his  own  son,  Absalom  ?  She  enforces 
her  argument  by  an  appeal  to  patriotism,  the  pathos 
of  human  life,  and  the  mercy  of  God.  In  keeping 
Absalom  away  David  did  wrong  to  the  people  of 
God  ;  life  is  so  short :  we  must  needs  die  and  are 
as  water  poured  forth,  spilt  on  the  ground.  Severity 
of  vengeance  could  not  bring  Amnon  back  to  life, 
but  it  might  keep  Absalom  forever  from  the  face 
of  his  father.  Even  God  did  not  deal  with  men  as 
David  was  dealing  with  his  son,  for  God  devised 
means  that  His  banished  be  not  expelled  from  Him. 
Touched  by  the  entreaty,  and  perhaps  glad  for  some 
excuse,  David  sent  for  Joab  and  told  him  that 
Absalom  might  come  home. 

"  "We  must  needs  die  and  are  as  water  spilt  on 
the  ground  which  cannot  be  gathered  up  again." 
It's  easy  to  spill  water  on  the  ground,  but  hard  to 
gather  it  up  again.  What  a  figure  that  is  of  the 
transitoriness  of  human  life !  We  accept  it  as  a  bit 
of  poetry,  a  winged  metaphor ;  but  to  order  our 
lives  in  the  light  of  its  truth,  that  is  a  different 
matter.  David  could  not  forgive  Absalom  after 
he  was  dead.  There  could  be  no  reconciliation  in 
the  tomb.  It  is  well  for  us  to  look  at  our  duties 
and  consider  our  alienations  in  the  knowledge  of 
life's  uncertainty.  We  are  indeed  like  water  spilled 
upon  the  ground.  How  little  it  takes  to  break  the 
pitcher  at  the  fountain  of  existence  and  spill  the 


6o       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament' 

mysterious  thing  that  we  call  life.  Once  poured 
forth,  you  cannot  gather  it  up  again.  It  is  too  late 
for  forgiveness  or  reconciliation  then.  In  the  name 
of  Christ  I  ask  you  to  look  at  your  alienations, 
enmities,  wrongs,  hard  feelings  and  resentments  in 
this  revealing  and  awe-inspiring  light. 

In  one  of  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre  there  hangs 
a  double  painting,  which  appeals  to  far  more  eyes 
and  hearts  than  many  a  famed  Ascension  or  Trans- 
figuration. In  the  first  painting  is  seen  an  outraged 
father,  with  uplifted  hand,  ordering  the  wicked  son 
to  leave  the  paternal  roof.  In  the  background 
cower  the  weeping  mother  and  frightened  sisters 
and  brothers.  The  second  scene  shows  the  same 
cottage  and  the  same  humble  room  and  the  same 
father  and  mother  and  children.  But  the  father 
lies  still  upon  the  bed,  the  aloofness  of  death  upon 
his  face.  At  the  side  of  the  bed,  with  her  face 
buried  in  her  hands,  kneels  the  mother  and  her 
children.  The  cottage  door  has  just  been  flung 
open  and  the  returning  prodigal  stands  with  his 
foot  on  the  sill  and  his  hand  on  the  door,  as  if  he 
had  been  smifcten  into  stone.  He  had  come  too 
late.  Both  father  and  son  bad  waited  too  long. 
Now  there  is  no  place  for  repentance  and  no  place 
for  forgiveness.  The  father's  life  had  been  poured 
forth ;  now  it  could  not  be  gathered  up  again. 
Life's  cord  is  silver,  but  it  is  frail,  and  when  once 
cut,  it  cannot  be  tied  together  again :  life's  bowl 
and  lamp  is  golden,  but  it  is  easily  broken  and 
shattered  to  pieces ;  life's  pitcher  is  chastely  wrought, 


The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of  Tekoah     6l 

but  when  it  falls,  it  is  gone;  life's  wheel  to-day 
draws  joy  and  sorrow  out  of  the  hidden  deeps  of 
being,  but  when  the  wheel  is  broken  at  the  cistern, 
never  again  will  it  bring  the  water  up.  Yet  men 
go  on  from  day  to  day,  neglecting  their  oppor- 
tunities, not  remembering  their  Creator,  harbouring 
their  enmities  and  feeding  the  flames  of  their  dis- 
agreements as  if  life's  cord  were  a  chain  of  iron 
instead  of  silver,  or  a  lamp  of  heavy  bronze  not  to 
be  broken,  or  a  pitcher  of  brass,  or  a  wheel  that 
could  never  be  interrupted  in  its  daily  routine. 
Turn  the  wheel  of  duty,  trim  the  lamp  of  love,  fill 
the  pitcher  of  reconciliation;  for  to-morrow  you 
may  be  as  water  spilled  on  the  ground,  to  be 
gathered  up  no  more. 

This  brings  me  to  a  different  kind  of  alienation, 
that  which  exists  between  God  and  man.  This 
parable  fits  itself  into  the  gospel  of  reconciliation 
if  we  think  of  God  as  the  Father,  instead  of  David, 
and  man  the  wanderer  and  exile,  instead  of  Absa- 
lom. Like  Absalom,  man  is  separated  and  alienated 
from  his  Father.  You  may  make  poetic  sentences 
and  write  learned  treatises  about  man  as  the  child 
of  the  Infinite  Father  ;  but  you  do  not  tell  the  whole 
truth  until  you  say  that  he  is  a  child  who  has  wan- 
dered from  the  Father's  home,  who  has  been  sepa- 
rated and  alienated  from  the  life  of  God.  'No  rose- 
water  theory  of  human  nature  suits  the  dark  facts 
of  man's  state.  Talk  with  one  man  who  reveres 
God  and  obeys  His  commandments  and  follows  His 
Eternal  Son,  and  then  talk  with  another  who  makes 


62       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

his  God,  if  any,  an  abstraction,  and  is  full  of  ma- 
lignity against  Christ  and  Christianity.  The  only 
way  you  can  explain  it  is  this  :  one  man  has  been 
reconciled  to  God,  and  the  other  alienated  from 
God.    The  natural  state  of  man  is  alienation. 

But  God  does  devise  means  that  His  banished 
be  not  forever  banished.  The  soul  of  the  Eternal 
God  yearns  to  go  out  to  the  banished  son.  David 
missed  Absalom,  the  shepherd  missed  the  one 
sheep  ;  God  feels  your  loss  and  exile.  And  because 
God  is  love,  He  has  devised  means.  In  this  story 
of  David  the  problem  was  solved  by  sinking  judg- 
ment in  mercy,  by  sacrificing  the  judicial  to  the 
paternal.  But  God  could  not  do  that.  He  could 
not  bring  back  the  exile,  the  guilty  man,  as  if  he 
were  an  innocent  man.  Those  who  treat  man's 
condition  lightly  would  have  God  deal  with  sin  in 
that  way.  But  God  is  too  wise  and  too  kind  to  do 
that.  The  Wood  of  Ephraim  filled  with  twenty 
thousand  corpses,  and  sorrow  and  gloom  in  every 
home  in  Israel,  and  David  moaning,  "  Would  God 
I  had  died  for  thee ! "  was  the  result  of  a  recon- 
ciliation which  ignored  justice.  For  over  a  century 
the  Edinburgh  Beview  has  had  on  its  cover  the 
Latin  epigram,  "  Judex  damnatur  cum  nocens  ah- 
soVvitur  " — "  The  judge  is  condemned  when  the 
guilty  is  freed."  If  God  is  to  forgive  man,  He  must 
forgive  him  like  a  God.  If  He  is  to  justify,  He 
must  still  remain  just. 

God  has  devised  means.  IS'one  but  God  could 
have  provided  such  a  plan.    By  giving  His  only 


The  Parable  of  the  Woman  of  Tekoah    63 

Begotten  Son  to  die  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  God 
judges  sin  and  yet  forgives  the  sinner.  He  remains 
just,  and  yet  the  justifier  of  them  that  believe  in 
Jesus.  Christ,  by  the  blood  of  His  Cross,  hath 
made  peace.  You  hath  He  reconciled.  To-day 
the  messenger  of  God  tells  Absalom  that  he  can 
come  home,  that  God  is  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  to  Himself.  Have  you  dealt  with  sin  ? 
Have  you  dealt  with  your  separation  and  aliena- 
tion from  the  life  of  God  ?  And  if  not,  is  it  be- 
cause life  is  any  longer  or  any  less  frail  than  it  was 
when  this  woman  of  Tekoah  described  it  as  "  water 
spilt  on  the  ground,  which  cannot  be  gathered  up 
again  "  ? 


VI 

The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard 
Isaiah  v,  i-2j 

IMAGINE,  if  you  will,  a  priest  or  a  minister  of 
religion  arising  in  the  assemblies  of  the  French 
nation  to-day,  announcing  to  the  government 
and  the  legislators,  and  passing  up  and  down  the 
streets  of  Paris  to  cry  aloud  to  all  the  people,^  this 
message  of  woe  and  calamity :  "  France  is  strong 
but  not  righteous  ;  she  is  patriotic  but  does  not  fear 
God ;  she  is  rich,  but  not  true.  For  all  this  she  is 
to  be  punished.  Her  fair  kingdom  will  be  overrun 
and  devastated  by  the  enemy,  for  the  anger  of  God 
is  kindled  against  the  nation."  Imagine  the  storm 
of  rage  and  protest  that  would  break  over  his  head, 
the  cries  of  "  traitor  "  and  "  patricide  "  that  would 
go  up,  the  scorn  and  obloquy  which  would  attend 
him  wherever  he  went,  the  danger  his  very  life 
would  be  in  from  the  rage  of  the  mobs,  and  you 
will  understand  the  position  of  Isaiah,  a  young 
prophet,  an  intense  patriot,  a  lover  of  Jerusalem, 
when  he  informed  her  king,  her  counsellors  and 
her  people  that  the  proud  nation  of  Judah,  still 
glittering  in  the  glory  of  Uzziah's  great  reign,  with 
one  of  the  largest  standing  armies  in  the  world, 
with  a  mighty  array  of  new  military  inventions — 

64 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  65 

huge  pieces  of  artillery  which  could  batter  down 
any  fortifications — and  withal,  riches,  wealth, 
splendour,  prosperity,  the  show  and  panoply  of 
power,  was  corrupt  at  heart  and  abounded  in  op- 
pression and  brutal  tyrannies  and  all  unrighteous- 
ness, and  therefore  God  would  deliver  her  over  to 
her  foes ;  that  He  would  call  a  great  nation  from 
the  north  to  crush  and  humiliate  her. 

The  stern  and  terrible  content  of  his  prophecy 
may  perhaps  account  for  the  way  in  which  Isaiah 
introduces  himself  and  his  message  of  approaching 
doom.  When  God  sent  Nathan  to  rebuke  David 
for  his  sin,  and  pronounce  doom  upon  him  and  his 
house,  how  the  sword  should  never  depart  from  it, 
Nathan  commenced  with  a  parable  as  gentle  as  if 
it  had  fallen  from  the  lips  of  the  Master  of  Par- 
ables Himself.  He  disarmed  the  apprehensions  of 
the  guilty  king  and  skillfully  led  him  on  until  he 
showed  him  that  the  sin  he  had  so  denounced  was 
his  very  own.  "  Thou  art  the  man  !  "  Isaiah  used 
a  like  method.  He  begins  with  a  song,  and  the 
burden  of  the  song  is  the  story  of  a  vineyard. 
"  Let  me  sing  for  my  beloved  a  song  of  my  beloved 
touching  his  vineyard." 

"A  friend  of  his  had  a  vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful 
hill.  The  hillside  was  kissed  each  day  by  the 
southern  sun,  the  soil  was  favourable  for  the  vine, 
well  watered,  and,  moreover,  there  were  other  vine- 
yards in  that  same  locality  which  were  doing  well, 
and  yielding  some  thirty,  some  sixty,  and  some 
even  an  hundred  fold.    As  soon  as  the  land  was 


66       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

his,  he  sent  his  servants  to  dig  it  and  turn  up  the 
earth  and  pick  out  the  stones.  Then  he  went  to 
the  nursery  of  the  husbandmen  and  purchased  the 
choicest  vines,  no  ordinary  vines,  but  the  best  that 
money  could  buy,  the  vines  for  which  Eschol  and 
Ephraim  were  noted,  "grapes  of  Eschol"  and 
"  grapes  of  Ephraim,"  so  highly  rated  that  even 
the  gleanings  of  the  grapes  of  Ephraim,  the  poor 
ones  left  over  after  the  husbandman  had  sent  the 
best  to  the  market,  were  considered  better  than  the 
vintage  of  other  vineyards.  These  were  the  choice 
vines  that  he  set  out  in  his  vineyard.  Then  he 
hewed  out  a  wine-press  so  that  when  the  vines  bore 
the  purple  fruit,  he  might  be  ready  to  press  them 
into  the  cheering  wine.  He  was  not  content  with 
an  ordinary  booth  beneath  which  the  watchman 
could  sit  and  guard  the  vineyard  from  the  invasion 
of  prowling  beast  or  man,  but  he  erected,  at  great 
expense,  a  permanent  tower  where  he  himself 
might  come  and  sit  when  the  sun  had  ^ne  down 
on  the  mountains  and  look  with  satisfaction  on  the 
growing  vines,  and  anticipate  the  day  when  they 
would  bend  beneath  the  heavy  clusters  of  the  ri- 
pened fruit.  But  when  the  time  came  for  the 
vineyard  to  bear  fruit,  lo,  it  bore  wild  grapes — 
sour,  bitter,  useless.  He  had  done  all  he  could  for 
the  vineyard,  and  the  net  result  of  all  his  expense 
and  care  was  wild  grapes.  There  was  nothing  to 
do  but  abandon  the  place :  the  hedge  that  enclosed 
it  was  torn  down,  the  tower  was  demolished,  the 
vines  were  uprooted,  and  the  vineyard  was  left  to 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  67 

the  company  of  briers  and  thorns  and  brambles. 
^o  one  could  charge  the  owner  of  the  vineyard 
with  having  left  undone  anything  w^hich  the  sci- 
ence of  viniculture  could  suggest,  and  no  one  could 
blame  him  for  abandoning  the  vineyard  when  it 
brought  forth  wild  grapes. 

Thus  far,  all  has  been  unobjectionable,  only  a 
fair  idyl  of  husbandry  and  field  life.  Then,  sud- 
denly, the  prophet  turns  and  drives  the  parable 
home.  "  For  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
is  the  House  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of  Judah  his 
pleasant  plant ;  and  he  looked  for  justice,  but  be- 
hold, oppression ;  for  righteousness,  but  behold,  a 
cry  ! "  He  looked  for  the  sweet  grapes  of  justice 
and  righteousness  and  charity  and  purity,  but  be- 
hold, the  wild  grapes  of  sin  and  iniquity  !  "  Woe 
unto  them  that  join  house  to  house  and  field  to 
field,  that  buy  up  all  the  land  and  all  the  houses  in 
the  country  till  the  poor  man  is  their  slave !  "Woe 
unto  them  that  drink  and  dance,  but  regard  not 
the  works  of  the  Lord  !  Woe  unto  them  that 
draw  iniquity  with  cords  of  falsehood  and  sin  with 
a  cart  rope !  Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good, 
and  good  evil !  Woe  unto  them  that  justify  the 
wacked  for  a  bribe !  Therefore  hell  hath  enlarged 
its  desire  and  opened  its  mouth  without  measure, 
and  their  glory  and  their  pomp  and  their  multi- 
tude descend  into  it.  Therefore  is  the  anger  of 
God  kindled  against  His  people,  and  He  will  lift 
up  an  ensign  to  the  nations  from  far,  and  will  hiss 
for  them  from  the  end  of  the  earth." 


68       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

Against  this  destruction  of  the  vineyard  what 
protest  could  be  made?  The  nation  had  been 
chosen  and  planted  by  the  hand  of  God.  Like 
stones  from  the  soil,  He  had  driven  out  their  ene- 
mies. Signs,  prophets,  wonders,  rain  and  dew, 
blessings  and  judgments,  warnings  and  prayers, 
pleadings  and  entreaties,  love  and  wrath,  patience 
and  labour,  had  been  expended  upon  Israel,  and 
yet  her  vineyard  brings  forth  nought  but  the  wild 
grapes  of  private  dissoluteness  and  public  oppres- 
sion and  tyranny. 
I  "  What  more  could  have  been  done  in  my  vine- 
I  yard  that  I  have  not  done  in  it  ?  "  The  question 
that  God  through  His  prophet  asks  the  about  to 
be  rejected  nation  is  one  that  you  and  I  do  well  to 
consider.  The  results  of  vice  and  ungodliness  here 
in  this  world  all  can  see  to  be  truly  fearful,  and 
the  judgments  pronounced  upon  the  ungodly  and 
the  impenitent  in  the  world  to  come  rumble  like 
reverberations  of  thunder  in  the  Bible,  and  flash 
like  jagged  forks  of  lightning  on  the  horizon  of  the 
^''  .  soul.  In  view  of  this,  w^e  have  a  perfect  right  to 
\  ^^  •  ask,  "  Has  God  done  all  that  He  might  have  done 
to  keep  me  from  sin  and  its  consequences  here  and 
hereafter?"  Open  or  unconfessed,  the  charge  is 
sometimes  brought  against  the  Christian  system, 
that  while  it  sets  itself  forth  as  a  revelation  from 
God  and  of  God's  plan  and  device  for  man's  salva- 
tion, nevertheless  God,  in  view  of  the  issues  of 
eternal  life  and  eternal  death,  in  view  of  the  prone- 
ness  of  human  nature  to  vice  and  its  repugnance 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  69 

to  virtue,  might  have  done  more  than  He  has 
done. 
The  lines  of  an  old  hymn  sang  of  the  atonement, 

"  He  saw  me  ruined  in  the  fall, 
He  flew  to  my  relief." 

But  thousands  of  years  elapsed  before  Christ,  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God,  became  flesh,  and  the  gospel 
of  repentance  and  redemption  was  preached  unto 
men.  Why  that  long  delay  ?  If  Christ  was  to  re- 
deem man,  why  did  He  not  come  after  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  sin  in  the  world  ?  Why  was  this  long 
history  of  sin  and  vice  and  cruelty  and  ignorance 
permitted  to  unfold  itself  ?  Could  God  not  have 
done  better  than  that  ?  With  man  time  is  neces- 
sary if  he  is  to  work  out  a  given  plan  or  effect  a 
given  object.  He  must  have  time  and  he  must 
contrive  to  bring  about  what  he  desires.  I  can  see 
how  if  man  were  going  to  effect  some  plan  of  re- 
demption, he  would  need  time  and  he  must  use  dif- 
ferent means.  But  God  is  not  man.  Why  with 
Him  this  long  delay,  this  tedious  process  of  devel- 
opment and  instruction?  In  the  letter  to  the 
Galatians  Paul  said  that  "  when  the  fullness  of  the 
time  came,  God  sent  forth  his  Son,  born  of  a 
woman,  born  under  the  law  that  he  might  redeem 
them  that  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might  re- 
ceive the  adoption  of  sons."  It  is  not  difficult  to 
see  how  there  had  been  a  fullness  of  times  when 
Christ  came  into  the  world.  Man  learned  that  he 
could  not  save  himself ;  the  seed  of  evil  was  given 


yo       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

opportunity  to  bear  its  evil  fruit ;  the  law  was  a 
schoolmaster  to  bring  the  world  to  Christ ;  it  kept 
before  men's  minds  their  sinful  estate  and  the  need 
of  some  kind  of  redemption ;  it  goaded  man's  con- 
science, and  thus  prepared  him  for  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel.  In  the  heathen  world  also  there  was 
a  preparation.  God  had  not  left  Himself  without 
a  witness,  and  in  spite  of  their  follies  and  bru- 
talities the  heathen  religions  were  what  Paul  calls 
*' feeling  after  God."  They  had  the  longing  for 
and  the  expectation  of  a  better  day.  Thus,  one  has 
written  of  Stoicism  that  it  was  a  "  sigh  after  Chris- 
tianity." "When  Christ  came,  the  conquests  of 
Alexander  had  spread  the  Greek  language  over  the 
world  and  the  apostles  could  either  speak  and  write 
Greek  themselves,  or  have  translated  into  that  com- 
mon language  their  ideas.  "When  Christ  was  born, 
the  Roman  empire  had  spread  its  discipline  and  its 
organization  and  its  political  systems  over  a  great 
part  of  the  world :  the  means  of  travel  had  been 
developed  to  a  state  unequalled  again  in  the  world 
until  the  nineteenth  century.  Therefore,  when  the 
disciples  went  forth  to  preach,  they  travelled  over 
the  splendid  Roman  roads  and  enjoyed  the  privi- 
leges of  the  ordered  civilization  which  Rome  had 
given  to  the  world.  Thus,  both  in  the  Jewish 
world  and  in  the  heathen  world,  it  was  a  fullness 
of  times.  "  Heathenism  is  the  starry  night,  full  of 
darkness  and  fear,  but  of  mysterious  presage  also, 
and  anxious  waiting  for  the  light  of  day  ;  Judaism 
the  dawn,  full  of  the  fresh  hope  and  promise  of  the 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  71 

rising  sun ;  both  lose  themselves  in  the  sunlight  of 
Christianity,  and  attest  its  claim  to  be  the  only  true 
and  perfect  religion  for  mankind." 

All  this  we  can  see  when  we  look  back  over  the 
ages  ;  but  why  that  kind  of  preparation  was  neces- 
sary, why  God  chose  to  save  by  that  long  and  his- 
toric process,  that  no  man  can  answer;  and  cer- 
tainly no  man  can  object  to  the  plan,  any  more 
than  the  thing  formed  shall  say  to  the  hand  that 
formed  it,  "  Why  hast  thou  formed  me  thus  ? " 
God  sees  the  beginning  and  God  sees  the  end.  We 
see  only  this  little  segment  of  time,  and  it  would  be 
rash  for  us  to  say  that  God  might  have  done  dif- 
ferently and  might  have  done  better,  unless  we 
ourselves  have  the  advantageous  position  that  God 
has.  Our  objections  and  exceptions  to  what  God 
does  for  His  vineyard,  the  human  race,  are  due  to 
the  limitation  of  our  powers.  We  want  to  judge 
God's  work  as  if  it  were  our  work. 

Suppose  that  I  went  down  to  the  Navy  Yard  and 
found  there  a  ship  in  the  process  of  construction. 
I  know  nothing  of  the  purpose  for  w^hich  the  ship 
is  being  built,  whether  it  is  to  be  a  vessel  of 
war,  or  pleasure,  or  to  carry  passengers,  or  sail  the 
seas  with  the  wares  of  the  world.  What  right 
would  I  have  to  say  to  the  builder  and  designer, 
"  Why  did  you  not  do  it  thus  ?  "  or  "  Why  was 
this  put  in  this  place  instead  of  yonder  ? "  The 
builder  would  not  need  to  answer  my  objections, 
but  he  could  tell  me  to  wait  until  the  ship  was  fin- 
ished and  was  launched  to  do  the  work  for  which 


f/fi^: 


72       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

it  had  been  built.  Only  God  sees  the  consumma- 
tion ;  and  until  you  and  I  see  that  consummation 
divine  of  God's  glorious  plan,  the  mystery  hid  from 
the  foundations  of  the  world,  we  can  claim  no  right 
to  find  fault  with  what  has  been  done. 

Men  are  impatient  and  want  things  done  with 
precipitation.  But  the  Author  of  nature  and  the 
Author  of  grace  chooses  His  own  way  and  His 
own  time.  In  the  eloquent  words  of  Guizot,  "  The 
ways  of  Providence  are  not  confined  within  narrow 
limits ;  He  hurries  not  Himself  to  display  to-day  the 
consequences  of  the  principle  that  He  yesterday 
laid  down;  He  will  draw  it  out  in  the  lapse  of 
ages,  when  the  hour  is  come ;  and,  even  according 
to  our  reasoning,  logic  is  not  the  less  sure  because 
it  is  slow.  Providence  is  unconcerned  as  to  time ; 
His  march  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  simile)  is  like 
that  of  the  fabulous  deities  of  Homer  through  space : 
He  takes  a  step,  and  ages  have  elapsed." 
7:e^,i  Then,  another  looking  at  Christianity  not  in  its 
historic  unfolding,  but  in  its  dissemination  over  the 
earth,  finds  fault  with  the  lack  of  universality  in 
that  dissemination.  Some  favoured  nations  re- 
ceived the  Gospel ;  many  did  not.  Some  to-day 
have  all  the  advantages  of  the  established  church 
with  its  perpetual  services  and  its  call  to  repent- 
ance, but  vast  tracts  of  the  world  have  not  yet  re- 
ceived the  ambassador  of  the  Cross.  Is  it  conceiv- 
able, we  are  asked,  that  this  heavenly  treasure,  the 
news  of  salvation  and  eternal  life,  should  be  given 
to  one  people  and  not  to  another,  or  that  it  should 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  73 

be  committed  to  earthen  vessels,  and  that  the  repe- 
tition of  it  should  be  left  to  the  varying  zeal  and 
piety  and  obedience  of  the  Christians  who  had  re- 
ceived the  Gospel  ?  Does  it  not  seem  most  reason- 
able, most  necessary,  to  suppose  that  such  tidings 
as  the  Gospel  declares  itself  to  be  should  be 
preached  everywhere,  not  given  to  a  few,  nor  left 
for  its  repetition  and  propagation  to  the  initiative 
and  energy  of  those  who  were  fortunate  enough  to 
receive  it  first  ? 

This  objection  to  the  plan  of  God  loses  much  of 
its  force  when  we  reflect  that  it  is  an  objection 
which  does  not  bear  exclusively  upon  Christianity, 
but  upon  the  whole  order  of  the  world.  Nations 
grow  up  at  a  disadvantage  with  other  nations. 
The  Hottentots  and  the  Tartary  tribes  and  the  in- 
habitants of  the  regions  of  ice  and  snow  in  the  far 
north  or  far  south  are  in  less  favourable  circum- 
stances than  England,  France,  America.  In  the 
spread  of  civilization,  in  the  spread  of  the  Gospel, 
one  nation  has  been  chosen  and  the  other  left.  The 
same  is  true  of  individuals  :  one  is  born  blind,  or 
maimed,  or  he  is  weak  and  sickly,  unattractive  in 
person  ;  another  is  strong  and  healthy  and  rich  and 
powerful.  God  sets  one  up  and  brings  another 
down.  The  favours  of  this  life  are  not  equally 
distributed.  Men  are  not  created  equal,  nor  in 
equality  do  they  live  out  their  earthly  term.  So 
far  as  we  are  able  to  see.  Providence  is  capricious 
in  the  distribution  of  its  favours  and  blessings.  So 
that  if  it  be  advanced  against  Christianity  that  it 


74       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

ought  to  have  been  given  to  all  nations  and  all 
peoples,  and  through  a  common  medium,  and  not 
having  been  given  that  way,  therefore  it  cannot  be 
true,  we  may  say  that  the  same  difference  and  par- 
tiality may  be  observed  in  nature  and  in  common 
experience.  The  Laplander  does  not  get  as  much 
sunshine  as  I  do,  nor  does  the  dweller  in  the  Afri- 
can desert  get  as  much  rainfall  as  I  do  ;  but  I 
would  be  a  fool  to  refuse  to  enjoy  the  sunshine  and 
the  rainfall  for  that  reason  ;  and  if  Christianity  is 
capable  of  blessing  me  and  saving  me,  I  would  be 
foolish  to  reject  it  because  it  was  not  preached 
until  nineteen  centuries  ago,  or  because  to-day 
there  are  thousands  in  China  and  Africa  who  have 
not  so  much  as  heard  the  name  of  Christ. 

But  even  were  it  not  so  that  the  gospel  procla- 
mation is  lacking  in  universality,  and  instead  of 
that  being  the  case,  it  was  to-day  preached  among 
every  people  and  race  and  kindred,  still  you  would 
not.  have  rid  yourself  of  this  alleged  difficulty,  a 
lack  of  equality.  You  might  choose  a  hundred 
men  here  in  Philadelphia,  and  offer  them  the  same 
Gospel  in  the  same  loving  terms  in  which  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  proclaimed  it  and  offered  it  freely 
unto  men.  But  is  there  absolute  equality  ?  Are 
they  all  on  the  same  footing  ?  How  different  is 
their  temperament,  their  mental  make-up !  One 
man  sees  difficulties  which  do  not  suggest  them- 
selves to  another.  One  has  a  native  keenness  of 
things  spiritual,  and  the  other  a  native  dullness. 
One's  life  and  surroundings  have  been  of  a  nature 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  75 

favourable  to  the  receiving  of  the  Gospel ;  another's, 
so  far  as  we  may  judge,  altogether  unfavourable. 
I  was  born  in  a  Christian  home.  I  learned  to 
name  the  name  of  Christ  as  soon  as  I  could  speak  ; 
through  Him  the  first  fond  prayers  my  lips  of 
childhood  framed  were  offered  unto  God.  I  had 
the  influence  and  example  of  a  godly  home ;  I 
heard  Christianity  sung  and  prayed  and  read  and 
explained  out  of  Bible  and  catechism  and  psalm 
book,  and  I  saw  it  lived.  I  beheld  it  drawn  out  in 
living  and  unforgetable  characters,  and  never  for  a 
single  moment  had  occasion  to  doubt  the  sincerity 
of  those  who  professed  it,  the  reality,  or  its  blessed 
influence  upon  their  lives  and  the  lives  of  others. 
Although  not  inevitable,  for  others  similarly  situ- 
ated have  not  believed  in  Christ  or  become  Chris- 
tians, it  was  natural  that  I  should  have  become  a 
Christian  and  also  a  minister.  But  here  is  another 
man,  and  how  different  has  been  his  experience. 
Where  I  heard  hymns  and  prayer  and  psalms,  and 
words  of  wisdom  and  of  kindness,  he  heard  only 
oaths  and  curses  and  words  of  strife  and  bitterness ; 
or  where  I  saw  the  doctrine  drawn  out  in  living 
characters,  he  saw  the  doctrine  he  is  now  asked  to 
believe  perverted  and  debased  and  caricatured  in 
hypocritical  and  worldly  lives.  Will  you  say  that 
he  and  I  are  on  an  exact  equality  when  you  come 
to  us  and  say,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  ? 
But  I  will  not  give  up  my  faith  and  throw  away 
my  Christianity  merely  because,  while  I  was  born 
in  such  a  home  and  witnessed  such  an  example  of 


76       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

the  Christian  faith,  some  other  was  born  and  reared 
in  circumstances  totally  different  and  altogether 
less  favourable.  Christianity  may  be  false,  but  you 
must  furnish  some  other  reason  before  I  believe  it 
to  be  false. 

In  all  these  objections,  too,  one  thing  is  con- 
stantly lost  sight  of :  God  will  not  do  an  injustice. 
The  Judge  of  all  the  earth  must  do  right.  Men 
will  be  judged  according  to  their  light  and  the 
circumstances  of  their  present  and  their  past  will 
be  considered  in  a  way  that  we  cannot  understand. 
"  According  to  that  a  man  hath,  and  not  according 
to  that  he  hath  not,"  that  is  the  standard  which  must 
be  taken  into  the  account  when  we  think  of  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  man  in  a  Christian  land  and 
the  man  in  the  heathen  land,  or  even  between  two 
men  in  Christian  lands  and  living  in  the  same  con- 
ditions of  society  and  knowledge,  yet,  by  reason  of 
nature  or  birth  or  training,  occupying  a  place  of 
advantage  and  disadvantage  as  regards  the  accept- 
ance of  Christianity.  We  shall  be  judged  according 
to  the  circumstances  in  which  we  have  been  placed, 
and  not  according  to  the  circumstances  in  which  we 
might  have  been  placed. 

But  if  so  much  depends  upon  our  attitude  towards 
Christ  and  the  revelation  of  the  Bible,  would  God 
not  have  written  that  revelation  on  the  heavens  so 
that  all  men  would  have  read  it  and  believed  it  ? 
Would  God  not  have  broken  through  all  these 
differences  of  race  and  epoch  and  age  and  training 
and  temperament  and  forced  the  acceptance  of  that 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  77 

revelation  upon  all  men  ?  If  He  really  desires  that 
all  should  be  saved  and  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth,  why  does  He,  for  He  is  God  and  can  do 
what  He  wills,  why  does  He  not  see  that  they  are 
saved  and  that  they  do  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth  ?  Why  does  He  let  these  differences 
stand  in  the  way,  or  why  does  He  leave  the  matter 
so  much  in  the  hands  of  men  ?  You  might  as  well 
ask  why  did  God  permit  man  to  fall  at  all ;  why 
did  He  permit  sin  to  come  into  man's  life ;  in  short, 
why  did  He  allow  Himself  and  man,  too,  to  be  con- 
fronted with  this  whole  mysterious  problem  of  re- 
demption ?  To  answer  that  you  would  need  to  be 
God  yourself.  But  since  man  did  fall,  since  the 
race  is  apostate,  since  sin  does  mar  and  ravage 
humanity,  and  since  man  is  to  be  saved  by  Jesus 
Christ,  it  is  not  unthinkable,  but  altogether  reason- 
able, that  faith  should  not  be  forced  upon  him,  but 
be  the  act  of  his  own  free  will,  cooperating  with 
the  sovereign  will  of  God.  So  Hugo  Grotius  has 
written,  "  It  is  the  will  of  God  that  those  things 
which  He  would  have  us  believe,  so  that  faith  should 
be  accepted  from  us  as  obedience,  should  not  be  so 
very  plain,  as  those  things  we  perceive  by  our 
senses,  and  by  demonstration ;  but  only  so  far  as  it 
is  sufficient  to  procure  belief,  and  persuade  a  man 
of  the  thing,  who  is  not  obstinately  bent  against  it, 
so  that  the  Gospel  is,  as  it  were,  a  touchstone  to 
try  men's  honest  dispositions  by."  The  man  who 
examines  the  Gospel  with  the  hope  of  finding  it 
not  true  will  generally  discover  it  to  be  so. 


yS       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

In  his  famous  analogy  Butler  uses  the  illustra- 
tion of  the  servant  and  the  master.  If  a  master 
wants  the  servant  to  do  a  given  thing,  he  takes 
pains  to  make  it  clear  beyond  all  peradventure  of 
a  doubt  what  he  wants  him  to  do,  and  arranges 
also  that  there  shall  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  authority 
of  the  orders  sent  him.  Why  does  not  God  give 
His  wishes  in  such  a  way  and  accompanied  by  such 
marks  of  their  origin  and  authority  that  man  would 
never  have  any  doubt  ?  Or  here  is  a  general  send- 
ing instructions  to  an  officer  in  the  midst  of  the 
battle.  In  the  critical  hours  of  the  battle  of 
Shiloh  General  Grant  sent  orders  to  General  Lew 
Wallace  to  bring  up  his  veteran  division,  and  by  a  cer- 
tain road.  But  that  officer  asseverated  that  it  was 
not  made  clear  to  him  by  what  road  he  was  to  ad- 
vance, and  in  doubt,  he  chose  the  wrong  road,  and 
thus  was  absent  from  the  field  when  his  presence 
would  have  decided  the  issue.  If  there  is  any 
doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  master's  orders,  or 
any  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  general's  orders, 
the  master  and  the  general  commanding  the  army 
are  to  be  held  responsible,  and  not  the  servant  or 
the  officer.  And  so  it  is  sometimes  said  that  if  all 
these  momentous  issues  of  life  and  death,  of  virtue 
and  vice,  hinge  upon  my  acceptance  or  my  rejection 
of  Christianity,  then  surely  God  would  have  ar- 
ranged it  that  there  could  have  been  no  such  thing 
as  a  shadow  of  a  doubt  as  to  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity or  as  to  its  meaning  when  it  is  proclaimed 
to  men.     But  men  do  doubt ;  men  are  perplexed ; 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  79 

men  have  their  moments  of  uncertainty,  and  many 
reject  Christianity  altogether. 

But  the  comparison  breaks  down,  for  God  does 
not  deal  with  us  as  a  master  deals  with  a  servant, 
or  as  a  general  deals  with  an  officer.  With  the 
master  and  the  general,  the  thing  being  done  is  the 
main  thing ;  with  God  the  doing  of  it,  the  way  in 
which  it  is  done.  When  the  master  commands  the 
servant,  he  has  his  mind  on  the  accomplishment  of 
the  task  in  the  house  or  the  field ;  when  the  general 
sends  the  order  to  the  officer,  he  has  in  mind  the 
disposition  of  that  regiment  or  that  division  ;  the 
master  cares  nothing  about  the  mind  of  the  servant, 
and  the  general  cares  nothing  about  the  mind  of 
the  officer,  so  long  as  the  work  is  done,  so  long  as 
the  regiment  is  placed  where  it  ought  to  be  placed. 
But  with  God  it  is  not  so.  I  am  His  child.  He 
considers  not  only  the  thing  done,  but  the  doing  of 
it.  He  would  have  His  will  done,  but  in  harmony 
with  my  will  and  my  loving  and  trusting  submis- 
sion to  His  will.  He  does  not  compel  me  to  act, 
but  He  asks  me  to  believe.  He  does  not  order  me 
to  go,  but  He  says,  "  Come  unto  me ! "  I  thank 
God  that  it  is  so,  that  God  has  reserved  a  place  for 
faith  and  trust  in  His  world,  and  that,  although 
there  are  many  things  that  trouble  me  and  perplex 
me,  many  things  that  I,  in  my  limitations,  could 
wish  He  had  made  clearer,  yet  He  has  given  me 
abundant  proof  and  evidence  that  He  is  worthy  of 
my  love  and  trust,  and  that  I  will  try  to  give  Him. 
I  could  ask  for  nothing  more. 


8o       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

To  go  back  to  the  figure  of  the  parable,  the  hus- 
bandman had  done  all  that  he  could  do  for  the  vine 
to  make  it  yield  fruit,  to  save  it  from  the  axe  and 
the  consuming  flame.  But  has  God  done  all  that 
He  could  do  to  save  man  from  the  penalty  of  sin, 
the  wages  of  sin,  which  is  death  ?  If  these  judg- 
ments to  come  were  only  made  a  little  clearer — for 
even  a  minister,  when  he  touches  upon  that  solemn 
theme,  must  wish  that  there  were  a  diflPerent  kind 
of  evidence  both  for  his  own  sake  and  the  sake  of 
those  to  whom  he  preaches — then  men  would  turn 
from  their  sins  and  repent  and  believe  on  Christ. 
Through  your  Bible  and  through  your  sermons 
there  runs  that  ground  swell  of  retribution  and 
judgment  to  come.  I  do  not  say  that  it  might  not 
be  so,  or  if  so,  would  be  anything  but  just ;  but  if 
it  is  so,  ought  there  not  to  be  other  evidences  and 
proofs  ?  Might  we  not  be  permitted  to  look  into 
that  world  beyond  and  behold  the  redeemed  in 
their  white  and  blessed  array,  serving  Him  and 
h3rmning  Him  night  and  day,  no  tears,  no  doubts, 
no  sin,  no  curse,  no  night,  no  death,  and  see  the  lost 
and  condemned  spirits  suffering  their  fearful  doom  ? 

*^  Ah,  Christ ;  that  it  were  possible 
For  one  brief  hour  to  see 
The  souls  we  loved,  that  they  might  tell  us 
What  and  where  they  be." 

I  am  glad  that  I  do  not  need  to  answer  that  ob- 
jection to  the  Gospel,  for  Jesus  Himself  has  sol- 
emnly and  finally  answered  it.     The  beggar  died 


The  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  8i 

and  was  received  into  bliss.  The  rich  man  died 
and  went  to  hell.  And  in  hell,  being  in  torments, 
he  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  seeth  Abraham  afar  off, 
and  Lazarus  in  his  bosom.  And  he  cried  and  said, 
"  Father  Abraham,  have  mercy  on  me,  and  send 
Lazarus,  that  he  may  dip  the  tip  of  his  finger  in 
water,  and  cool  my  tongue,  for  I  am  tormented  in 
this  flame."  But  Abraham  answered  that  this 
could  not  be  done,  that  a  gulf  was  fixed  between 
him  and  Lazarus,  and  one  could  not  pass  to  the 
other.  He  must  suffer,  but  he  deserved  to  suffer. 
Then  Dives  thought  of  his  five  brothers,  living  the 
same  kind  of  life  that  he  lived  and  bound  for  the 
same  place  of  torment.  "  If  Lazarus  cannot  help 
me,  if  it  is  too  late  for  that,  then  send  him  to  my 
father's  house  and  let  him  warn  my  brothers.  They 
won't  pay  any  attention  to  the  prophets  and  the 
law  of  Moses ;  no  more  than  did  I.  But,  Abraham, 
if  one  went  unto  them  from  the  dead,  I  think  they 
would  repent."  You  can  imagine  the  ghostly  visit- 
ant, leaving  the  world  of  spirits  and  suddenly  ap- 
pearing in  the  hall  where  the  five  brothers  of  Dives, 
their  grief  for  him  quickly  forgotten,  sat  arrayed  in 
purple  and  fine  linen,  faring  sumptuously.  You 
can  see  them  blanch  at  his  sudden  entrance  to  their 
midst,  and  the  glasses  fall  from  their  nerveless 
grasp  and  are  shattered  on  the  pavement,  as  Laz- 
arus says  to  them,  "  Your  brother  is  in  hell  and  in 
torments.  He  has  sent  me  to  warn  you  of  his  end 
and  to  tell  you  to  repent."  How  terrible  such  a 
visitation !    Who  would  not  repent  if  he  had  such 


82       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

a  warning  as  that  ?  But  Jesus  said,  "  Ko ;  if  they 
hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they 
repent  though  one  rose  from  the  dead." 

We  need  no  ghostly  visitant  from  heaven  or 
from  hell,  nor  would  heed  one  if  he  came.  God 
has  done  all  for  us  that  He  can  do,  all  that  is  neces- 
sary, all  that  is  kind  and  wise.  He  has  sent  us  His 
messengers  ;  He  has  given  us  His  oracles ;  He  has 
given  us  rain  and  sunshine ;  meat  and  drink ;  friends 
to  love  and  be  loved  by,  and  all  things  richly  to 
enjoy.  He  has  given  us  His  only  begotten  Son. 
Could  He  have  given  anything  more  valuable  ? 
Could  Christ  have  been  more  lovely  than  He  was  ? 
Could  He  have  improved  upon  the  Parable  of  the 
Lost  Sheep  or  the  Lost  Son  ?  Could  He  have  loved 
His  disciples  more  tenderly  than  He  did  love  them  ? 
Could  He  have  prayed  more  earnestly  in  the  gar- 
den ?  Could  He  have  died  a  more  shameful  and 
painful  death  ?  Oh,  the  depth  of  the  riches  both 
of  the  wisdom  and  the  knowledge  of  God  !  What 
more  could  God  do  ? 


VII 

The  Parable  of  the  Faithless  Wives 

Ezekiel  xxiii. 

THEY  might  have  learned  it  in  another 
way,  but  that  was  the  way  they  had 
chosen — the  way  of  sin  and  suffering  and 
judgment.  By  one  way  or  by  another,  by  the  way 
of  obedience  and  faith  and  good  works,  or  by  the 
hard  and  bitter  way  of  rebellion  and  sin  and  retri- 
bution, men  and  nations  must  learn  that  God  is  the 
Lord.     That  is  life's  greatest  lesson. 

Musing  One  October  evening  amid  the  ruins  of 
the  Capitol,  while  the  barefooted  friars  were  sing- 
ing vespers  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter,  Edward  Gib- 
bon first  conceived  the  design  of  writing  the  "  De- 
cline and  the  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire."  To 
Ezekiel,  as  he  sat  among  the  captives  on  the  banks 
of  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  the  heavens  were  opened 
and  he  saw  visions  of  God.  In  metaphors  of  flam- 
ing splendour,  but  almost  impenetrable  mystery, 
he  tells  us  what  he  saw.  After  the  vision  came 
the  Voice  commissioning  him  to  go  and  speak  to 
the  defeated  and  crushed,  but  still  rebellious  people 
of  Israel.  It  was  not  his,  like  Isaiah,  to  hold  up 
the  hands  of  faltering  kings  and  call  the  nation  to 

83 


84       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

repentance  and  heroic  resistance.  It  was  too  late 
for  that :  the  blow  had  fallen.  The  visible  king- 
dom and  empire  of  Israel  had  passed  forever  and 
its  inhabitants  had  been  carried  into  captivity.  It 
was  his  to  contemplate  the  ruin  ;  to  stand  amid  the 
smoke  and  ashes  of  Hebrew  nationality,  and  hear 
God's  verdict  on  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  He- 
brew Monarchy,  and  repeat  that  verdict  to  the 
people. 

With  a  multitude  of  signs  and  allegories  and 
parables  he  delivers  himself  of  his  message.  In 
this  chapter  he  speaks  to  the  nation  in  the  parable 
of  the  faithless  wives.  There  were  two  women, 
daughters  of  one  mother  and  wives  of  one  husband. 
The  name  of  the  one  was  Oholah  and  the  name  of 
the  other  Oholibah.  By  these  names  the  prophet 
means  the  northern  kingdom  of  Samaria  and  the 
kingdom  of  Judah.  It  was  a  favourite  method  of 
the  prophets  to  set  forth  the  relationship  of  God  to 
His  people  under  the  similitude  of  the  marriage 
bond.  "I  thy  Maker  am  thy  Husband."  Both 
of  these  sisters  proved  false  to  their  marriage  vows. 
They  played  the  harlot  with  Assyria  and  Egypt 
and  Babylon.  They  were  caught  with  the  pomp 
and  splendour  of  these  powerful  empires  and  for- 
sook their  Lord  and  the  worship  of  Jehovah  to  fall 
down  before  the  idols  of  the  foreign  nations.  That 
bias  towards  idolatry  which  runs  through  the  his- 
tory of  the  chosen  people  since  they  came  up  out 
of  Egypt  finally  issued  in  complete  rejection  of 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  and  base  acquiescence  in 


The  Parable  of  the  Faithless  Wives      85 

all  the  abominations  of  the  kingdoms  about  them. 
The  doom  against  which  law  and  prophets  had 
warned  the  nation  since  the  day  of  the  thunders  of 
Sinai  was  not  long  delayed.  These  faithless  sisters 
were  delivered  into  the  hands  of  their  lovers.  It 
was  the  irony  of  history  that  they  were  spoiled  and 
ravaged  by  the  very  kingdoms  that  had  seduced 
them  to  do  evil.  First  the  northern  kingdom  of 
Samaria  was  taken  by  Sargon  and  that  goodly  land 
became  a  dwelling-place  of  lions.  Her  sister,  Judah, 
refused  to  be  warned  by  her  fate,  and  persisting  in 
her  iniquity,  was  devastated  and  overrun,  first  by 
Egypt,  and  then  by  Babylon.  Now  her  walls  were 
fallen,  her  glorious  temple  a  heap  of  rubbish,  her 
holy  vessels  ministered  to  the  appetites  of  heathen 
kings,  and  her  inhabitants  were  scattered  over  the 
face  of  the  earth.  "  And  ye  shall  know  that  I  am 
the  Lord." 

The  eloquent  voice  of  Ezekiel  has  been  hushed 
for  centuries  and  the  nations  whose  doom  he  took 
for  his  text,  and  the  other  nations  which  were  the 
ministers  of  God's  vengeance,  are  buried  beneath 
their  own  ruins.  But  God  still  lives,  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  at  that  time  has  been  repeated 
in  the  ages  intervening,  is  being  repeated  to-day, 
and  will  be  repeated  until  God  puts  a  period  to  the 
long  sentence  of  time.  The  sin  of  Israel  and  Judah 
God  spake  of  as  infidelity.  The  grave-digger  of 
nations,  of  churches,  of  immortal  lives,  is  infidelity, 
faithlessness  to  God. 

Let  us  look,  first,  at  the  infidelity  of  the  nation. 


86       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

To-day  we  distinguish  between  the  Church  and  the 
nation.  As  a  nation  what  are  our  vows,  and  to 
what  standards  of  life  are  we  pledged  ?  And  what 
are  the  signs  of  our  fidelity  thereto,  or  our  faith- 
lessness? As  the  man  sometimes  awakens  to  his 
responsibility  under  the  stress  of  deep  affection,  or 
great  sorrow,  or  pain,  so  the  nation  may  come  to 
itself  only  in  the  time  of  trial  and  suffering,  and 
realize  for  the  first  time  that  it  has  a  soul,  that 
there  are  deep  realities  to  which  it  may  prove  true 
or  prove  false.  Above  the  tumult  of  the  world- 
conflict,  and  above  the  cries  of  bodies  in  pain,  and 
souls  in  agony,  we  hear  very  distinctly  to-day  the 
sob  of  the  national  soul,  the  nations  conscious  of 
themselves,  and  in  pain  and  darkness  struggling  for 
existence  and  for  victory.  This  nation  awoke  to 
self-consciousness,  began  to  feel  that  it  possessed  a 
soul,  in  the  dark  days  of  the  Civil  War.  It  then 
became  evident  that  there  were  ideas  and  principles, 
the  defense  of  which,  the  vindication  of  which,  were 
more  important  than  national  existence  itself,  and 
that  it  was  better  for  the  nation  to  die  in  defense 
of  the  right  than  to  live  in  ignoble  compromise 
with  evil.  But  the  danger  is  that  in  times  of  peace 
and  prosperity  the  nation  should  forget  that  it  has 
a  soul,  and  seduced  by  wealth  and  pleasure  and 
pomp,  should  prove  faithless  to  the  vow  of  its 
union. 

The  history  of  states  may  be  summed  up  in  those 
lines  suggested  by  the  survey  of  the  ruins  of 
Eome, — 


The  Parable  of  the  Faithless  Wives      87 

^^  There  is  the  moral  of  all  human  tales  ; 
Tis  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past, 
First  freedom,  and  then  glory — when  that  fails — 
Wealth,  vice,  corruption — barbarism  at  last. 
And  history,  with  all  her  volumes  vast. 
Hath  but  one  page." 


Is  there  any  reason  to  expect  that  the  tale  of  our 
national  life  will  prove  an  exception  to  this  one 
page  of  all  history  ?  None  whatever.  Precisely  the 
same  symptoms  may  be  discerned  in  our  national 
life — a  departure  from  an  early  simplicity,  a  loosen- 
ing of  the  bonds  of  religion,  the  increase  in  luxury, 
the  passion  for  entertainment  and  amusement,  the 
passing  of  family  religion,  the  pollution  of  the 
marriage  tie  and  the  desecration  of  the  home,  the 
worship  of  the  body.  One  does  not  need  to  be  a 
prophet  to  mark  the  change  that  spreads  over  our 
national  life,  for  even  the  editor  of  the  chief  finan- 
cial journal  of  the  country  has  recently  written, 
"  What  America  needs  more  than  railways  exten- 
sion, and  western  irrigation,  and  low  tariff,  and  a 
bigger  wheat  crop,  and  a  merchant  marine  and  a 
new  navy,  is  a  revival  of  piety."  Experts  may 
frame  their  constitutions  and  legislatures  may  mul- 
tiply unto  themselves  laws,  the  suffrage  may  be 
made  universal,  but  all  will  be  in  vain  unless  the 
foundation  be  secure.  The  foundation  stone  of 
national  life  is  character,  and  the  strength  of  char- 
acter is  the  fear  of  God.  The  nations  that  forget 
God  shall  be  cast  into  hell.    That  is  not  only 


88       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

prophecy  and  theology ;  it  is  experience,  it  is  his- 
tory. "Except  the  Lord  build  the  house  they 
labour  in  vain  that  build  it.  Except  the  Lord 
keep  the  city,  the  watchman  waketh  but  in  vain." 

Down  in  Maryland  to-day,  not  far  from  the 
Potomac,  there  flows  under  graceful  stone  arches 
and  between  hillsides  where  the  autumn  leaves  lie 
thick,  a  stream  which  fifty  years  ago  ran  crimson 
to  the  great  river,  for  on  its  banks  men  defended 
unto  the  death  the  ark  of  the  nation.  To-day,  if 
you  go  there,  you  may  see  on  the  banks  of  that 
stream  the  bronze  figure  of  a  volunteer  soldier. 
He  was  meant  to  represent,  and  he  does  well 
represent,  the  members  of  a  regiment  made  up  of 
men  who  loved  their  country  and  feared  God.  In 
the  set  of  his  shoulders,  in  the  great  hands  that 
grasp  the  musket,  in  his  firm  set  mouth,  his  clear, 
frank  face  untainted  by  vice,  and  in  the  earnest 
deep  hollowed  eyes,  it  is  easy  to  behold  a  man  of 
living  faith  in  God,  and  whose  faith  issued  in 
heroic  deeds.  By  such  men,  in  peace  or  in  war, 
this  nation  has  been  kept  inviolate.  May  God 
keep  us  faithful  to  Him,  true  to  those  principles  of 
righteousness  and  justice  which  are  the  glory  and 
the  defense  of  the  state. 

"  The  tumult  and  the  shoutiug  dies  ; 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart : 
Still  stands  Thine  ancient  sacrifice. 
An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget,  Lest  we  forget.'' 


The  Parable  of  the  Faithless  Wives      89 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  fidelity  of  the  Church. 
The  Church  has  taken  the  place  of  the  nation. 
What  God  says  to  His  people  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  the  message  for  His  Church  in  the  New. 
For  this  reason  the  figure  of  the  parable  is  one 
that  was  adopted  by  the  Christian  apostles.  They 
liked  to  conceive  of  the  Church  as  the  Bride  of 
Christ.  John  spake  of  the  Church  as  the  Bride  of 
the  Lamb  and  saw  the  Holy  City  coming  down 
from  God  like  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband ; 
and  Paul  told  men  to  love  their  wives  even  as 
Christ  loved  the  Church.  The  vital  thing  in  civili- 
zation is  the  Church.  And  in  the  consideration  of 
the  Church,  the  paramount  question  is  not  her 
numbers,  her  wealth,  her  growing  or  her  fading 
influence,  or  the  ways  and  means  of  her  propa- 
ganda— those  questions  that  amuse  conventions 
and  clutter  the  magazines  and  current  fiction — but 
this :  Is  the  Church  loyal  to  her  Master  ?  Is  she 
faithful  to  her  Husband  ? 

One  of  the  great  epics  of  classic  literature  centers 
about  a  woman  who  was  separated  from  her  hus- 
band. He  had  gone  oif  to  a  foreign  war.  Now 
the  months  have  passed  by ;  no  word  had  come  of 
the  missing  Ulysses  tossed  up  and  down  on  the 
waves  of  the  ocean  and  tempted  by  sirens.  The 
multitude  of  suitors  pressed  about  Penelope  as  she 
sat  surrounded  by  her  maids  "  laying  her  hands  to 
the  spindle  and  holding  the  disstafiF,"  and  urged 
their  claims  upon  her,  but  she  was  faithful  to  her 
absent  Lord. 


go       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

"  True  to  a  vision,  steadfast  to  a  dream, 
Indissolubly  married  to  remembrance.^' 

At  length  Ulysses  himself  in  the  guise  of  a  beggar 
appeared  one  day  among  the  suitors,  took  his  own 
great  bow  and  bent  it,  revealed  himself  as  the  lost 
husband,  and  the  fidelity  of  Penelope  was  rewarded. 
To  me  that  is  a  picture  of  the  Church  in  the  world. 
She  is  the  blood-bought  Bride  of  Christ  and  all 
about  her  is  the  multitude  of  tempters  and  suitors 
who  would  shake  her  loyalty  to  her  Lord  and  master. 
As  Israel  and  Judah  were  tempted  by  the  glitter 
and  splendour  of  the  nations  about  them,  the 
Church  has  always  been  subjected  to  the  alarms 
and  allurements  and  rewards  of  some  other  than 
Christ.  In  Eoman  Catholicism  that  was  manifest 
in  the  Church  reaching  out  for  the  empire  of  the 
world ;  in  Protestant  Christianity  in  the  Church 
reaching  out  for  the  wisdom  of  the  world  and  sub- 
stituting it  for  the  wisdom  and  the  plan  of  God. 
Voices,  then,  prophetic,  apostolic,  historic,  cry  to 
the  Church,  as  once  the  Lord  of  the  Church  spake 
to  the  Church  of  Smyrna,  ''  Be  thou  faithful  unto 
death !  "  If  ever  there  was  an  age  when  the  Church 
needed  the  summons  of  that  challenge,  this  is  the 
age.  The  heathen  world  and  the  unconverted 
Christian  world,  sometimes  ignorantly  and  some- 
times willfully,  confuse  the  nation  w4th  the  Church, 
the  quarrels  and  disputes  of  kingdoms  with  the  in- 
fluence of  religion.  But,  to  quote  the  eloquent  and 
noble  sentences  of  Paley  in  his  chapter  on  the  in- 
fluence of  Christianity,  "  The  influence  of  religion 


The  Parable  of  the  Faithless  Wives      91 

is  not  to  be  sought  for  in  the  councils  of  princes,  in 
the  debates  or  resolutions  of  popular  assemblies,  in 
the  conduct  of  governments  towards  their  subjects, 
or  of  states  and  sovereigns  towards  one  another,  of 
conquerors  at  the  head  of  their  armies,  or  of  parties 
intriguing  for  power  at  home,  but  it  must  be  per- 
ceived, if  perceived  at  all,  in  the  silent  course  of 
private  and  domestic  life.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  within  us.  That  which  is  the  substance  of  re- 
ligion, its  hopes  and  consolations,  its  intermixture 
with  the  thought  by  day  and  by  night,  the  devotion 
of  the  heart,  the  control  of  appetite,  the  steady  di- 
rection of  the  will  to  the  commands  of  God,  is 
necessarily  invisible.  Eeligion  operates  most  upon 
those  of  whom  history  knows  the  least.  It  cannot, 
therefore,  be  thought  strange  that  this  influence 
should  elude  the  grasp  and  touch  of  public  history  ; 
for  what  is  public  history  but  a  register  of  the  suc- 
cesses and  disappointments,  the  vices,  the  follies, 
and  the  quarrels  of  those  who  engage  in  conten- 
tions for  power  ?  " 

To  that  separate  and  invisible  kingdom  of  Christ 
the  Church  must  bear  its  witness.  While  men  talk 
about  the  failure  of  Christianity  and  worst  of  all, 
weak-minded  Christians  chatter  about  Christianity 
never  having  been  tried,  the  true  and  faithful 
Church  heeds  but  one  voice  speaking  through  the 
confused  babel  of  sounds,  "  March  on  !  Go  ye  into 
all  the  world  and  preach  the  Gospel  unto  every 
creature.     Leave  the  failure  of  Christianity  to  me ! " 

The  true  Church  must  be  faithful  to  the  Cross  of 


92       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

Christ.  It  is  the  wisdom  of  God  set  over  against 
the  wisdom  of  the  world.  How  many  and  how 
alluring  are  the  substitutes  which  the  Church  has 
been  tempted  to  accept  for  the  great  doctrine  of 
the  Cross.  If  there  were  lacking  any  evidence  as 
to  man's  alienation  from  God,  it  would  be  supplied 
in  his  rejection  of  the  teaching  of  the  Cross,  or,  if 
he  does  receive  it,  in  his  efforts  to  make  it  mean 
something  else  than  it  does  mean,  to  make  it  coin- 
cide with  the  wisdom  through  which  the  world 
never  knew  God.  I  went  some  time  ago  to  visit  a 
patient  in  a  room  in  one  of  the  Catholic  hospitals. 
Looking  up  from  the  bed  of  the  sufferer  my  eye 
fell  on  the  crucifix.  There  was  the  Great  Sufferer, 
wounded  for  our  transgressions  and  bruised  for  our 
iniquities,  pain's  only  relief,  sin's  only  antidote, 
death's  sole  conqueror.  Yes,  in  the  straits  of  life, 
the  Cross  makes  its  ancient  appeal.  It  tells  the 
sufferer  of  One  who  suffered  for  him.  It  whispers 
peace  to  the  soul  that  is  tossed  on  the  sea  of  re- 
morse and  guilt.  When  we  go  down  into  that 
dark  valley  where,  no  matter  how  large  has  been 
the  company  of  our  friends  and  lovers  and  relatives 
in  life,  we  must  each  of  us  travel  alone  and  unat- 
tended, and  when  all  other  lights  have  flashed  and 
gone  out,  the  Cross  still  sheds  its  beams  upon  our 
way.  The  world  preaches  its  wisdom,  and  men 
who  scorn  the  Cross  seek  after  that  wisdom,  but 
we  preach  Christ  crucified.  The  Cross  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons.  It  commands  the  thief,  the 
murderer,  the  pure  sage  and  the  chaste  philosopher 
alike  to  prostrate  themselves  in  the  dust  and  cry 


The  Parable  of  the  Faithless  Wives 


93 


"  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner  ! "  But  it  con- 
demns only  that  it  may  save.  It  is  possible  to  say 
a  great  many  things  that  are  true  and  beautiful  con- 
cerning the  Cross  and  yet  leave  unsaid  the  chief 
thing,  the  thing  that  engaged  the  thought  and 
created  the  enthusiasm  of  the  first  heralds  of  the 
Cross,  that  on  the  Cross  Christ  gave  Himself  a 
ransom  for  the  sins  of  many.  Do  you  tell  me  of 
useful  and  honourable  lives  of  men  and  women 
who  do  not  receive  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross  ?  I  say 
without  the  least  hesitation  that  their  morality  is 
on  a  far  louver  level  than  that  of  those  who  do 
receive  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross,  for  the  favourite 
virtue  of  our  Lord  was  humility,  and  none  but  the 
humble  and  contrite  in  spirit  can  accept  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Cross.  Do  you  tell  me  of  churches 
whose  ministry  is  cultured  and  earnest,  whose 
membership  is  to  be  commended,  their  prayers  and 
their  alms  going  up  for  a  memorial  before  God, 
and  yet  these  churches  do  not  preach  the  Cross  ?  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  these  churches 
exist  only  because  there  are  churches  which  do 
preach  the  Cross.  They  shine  in  the  reflected  light 
of  the  churches  which  preach  Christ  crucified. 
Fling  out  that  banner !  lift  it  high  over  the  temples 
of  learning,  over  the  marts  of  trade,  over  the  fields 
of  battle !  It  sanctifies  the  bane  and  the  blessing, 
the  pain  and  the  pleasure  of  life,  and  towering  over 
all  the  wrecks  of  time,  and  gathering  round  its 
head  all  the  radiance  of  the  sacred  story,  shines 
ever  in  the  heavens  to  light  the  way  of  this  lost 
and  fallen  world  back  to  the  Father's  House. 


VIII 

The  Parable  of  the  Two  Eagles 
and  the  Vine 

Ezekiel  xvii. 

"  A  ND  all  the  trees  of  the  field  shall  know 
Zjk      that  I  the  Lord  have  brought  down  the 

X  -A-  high  tree,  have  exalted  the  low  tree, 
have  dried  up  the  green  tree,  and  have  made  the 
dry  tree  to  flourish.  I,  the  Lord,  have  spoken  and 
have  done  it." 

What  a  magnificent  epitome  of  human  history ! 
The  prophet  Ezekiel  had  been  taken  down  into 
Babylon  when  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  king  of  Baby- 
lon, carried  away  into  captivity  the  last  king  of 
Judah,  Jehoiachin.  The  prophecy  with  which  we 
have  to  do  in  this  chapter  was  uttered  during  the 
seven  years  between  that  event  and  the  final  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem,  and  the  crushing  of  Zede- 
kiah's  rash  and  perfidious  rebellion.  To  his  cap- 
tive countrymen  living  on  the  banks  of  the  Chebar, 
the  harp  of  their  national  life  hanging  voiceless  on 
the  willows  of  captivity,  Ezekiel  is  sent  to  speak 
the  parable  of  the  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine. 
"Speak  a  parable  unto  the  House  of  Israel  and 
say,  '  Thus  saith  the  Lord.' " 

A  great  eagle,  with  great  wings,  and  full  of 
feathers,   which    had   divers  colours,   came    unto 

94 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine  95 

Lebanon  and  cropped  off  the  highest  branch  of  the 
cedar  and  carried  it  into  a  land  of  traffic  and  set  it 
in  a  city  of  merchants.  He  took  also  of  the  seed 
of  the  land  and  planted  it  in  a  fruitful  field  and 
placed  it  by  great  waters.  And  it  grew  and  be- 
came a  spreading  vine  of  low  stature,  whose  branches 
turned  towards  him.  But  there  was  another  great 
eagle,  with  great  wings  and  many  feathers,  and  be- 
hold, this  vine  did  bend  her  roots  towards  him. 
For  that  reason,  its  bending  away  from  the  first 
great  eagle  and  towards  the  second,  the  vine  is  to 
be  pulled  up  by  the  roots,  its  fruit  cut  off,  and  its 
leaves  withered  as  by  the  scorching  breath  of  the 
east  wind. 

The  parable  as  Ezekiel  delivered  it  was  part  his- 
tory and  part  prophecy.  His  contemporaries  would 
have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  him  and  all  his 
metaphors.  Nor  to  any  one  familiar  with  the  last 
scenes  in  the  drama  of  Jewish  history,  as  related  in 
the  Book  of  Kings,  is  there  anything  recondite  or 
obscure,  even  if  the  prophet  himself  had  not  taken 
the  pains  to  explain  what  he  meant.  The  first 
great  eagle  with  great  wings  and  divers  coloured 
feathers  was  the  great  king  of  Babylon,  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, whose  kingdom  was  the  dominant 
empire  of  the  world,  for  it  had  succeeded  to  the 
sceptre  of  the  Assyrians,  and  but  a  few  years  prior 
to  this  prophecy,  on  the  field  of  Carcemish,  had 
crushed  the  armies  of  Egypt.  He  had  taken  into 
captivity  the  highest  branch  of  the  cedar  of  Leb- 
anon, the  last  of  the  royal  line  of  Judah,  Jehoiachin, 


96       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

and  had  set  him  and  his  people  in  Babylon,  the 
city  of  merchants  and  the  land  of  traffic.  But  in 
the  place  of  this  last  king  of  Judah,  Nebuchad- 
nezzar set  up  Zedekiah,  expecting  that  he  would 
rule  as  his  agent  and  do  his  will.  This  was  the 
low,  clambering  vine  of  Zedekiah's  kingdom  as  con- 
trasted with  the  mighty  cedar  of  true  and  former 
Jewish  royalty.  Then  the  second  eagle  appeared 
on  the  scene.  This  was  the  kingdom  of  Egypt, 
defeated  in  battle,  but  not  altogether  subdued. 
The  vine,  Zedekiah's  kingdom,  began  to  bend 
towards  this  eagle.  The  old  device  of  Egyptian 
alliance  was  resorted  to  in  order  to  throw  off  the 
yoke  of  the  conqueror.  jSTebuchadnezzar  could  not 
tolerate  such  dangerous  alliance.  It  would  be  like 
Ireland  making  to-day  an  alliance  with  Germany. 
With  his  armies  he  marched  against  Jerusalem. 
The  Egyptian  army  sent  north  to  succour  the  city 
was  unable  to  save  it,  and  I^ebuchadnezzar  took 
Jerusalem,  ravished  it  and  stripped  it  of  its  glories 
and  its  spoils,  left  the  glorious  temple  of  Solomon 
a  heap  of  smoking  ruins ;  and  the  treacherous 
Zedekiah,  with  his  eyes  burned  out,  he  carried  in 
an  iron  cage  to  grace  his  triumph  in  Babylon. 
But,  lest  the  people  should  despair,  Ezekiel  closes 
his  parable  by  a  picture  of  the  future  glory  of 
Judah,  when  she  shall  again  be  a  mighty  cedar  in 
whose  shade  shall  dwell  all  peoples  of  the  earth. 
After  the  world  empires  had  done  their  will  and 
had  served  their  day  and  their  purpose,  God  will 
consummate  history  with  His  own  everlasting  king- 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine  97 

dom,  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  parable  began  with  the  history  of  the  doings 
of  the  kings  of  the  world  empires,  Babylon  and 
Egypt,  and  the  conquered  king  of  Judah.  It  ends 
with  a  declaration  that  the  whole  earth  shall  know 
that  God  had  done  everything.  Nebuchadnezzar 
and  the  king  of  Egypt  and  Jehoiachin  and  Zedekiah, 
the  kings  of  Judah,  thought  that  they  were  doing 
it ;  they  knew  not  that  they  were  doing  the  will  of 
God,  though  they  did  but  their  own  will.  But  God 
was  merely  using  them  as  agents  to  carry  out  His 
own  sovereign  will.  If  the  high  tree  of  a  world 
empire  was  brought  crashing  down  into  the  dust 
by  the  sword  of  some  new  conqueror,  it  was  the 
sword  of  the  Lord  that  did  it.  And  if  a  low  and 
hitherto  despised  tree  of  national  life  was  exalted 
into  dignity  and  power,  it  was  the  hand  of  the 
Lord  that  had  done  it.  If  a  tree  that  was  green 
with  its  wealth  and  prosperity  and  splendour  sud- 
denly became  dry  and  withered,  it  was  the  breath 
of  the  Lord  that  had  smitten  it ;  and  if  a  dry  and 
withered  branch  blossomed  forth  in  the  greenness 
of  vigour  and  power,  it  was  the  will  of  God  that 
had  wrought  the  change. 

This  parable,  uttered  in  the  day  when  world 
empires,  great  eagles  of  prey,  pinioned  with  ma- 
terial pomp  and  glory,  were  striving  with  one 
another  ^nd  rising  each  on  the  ruins  of  the  con- 
quered and  fallen,  speaks  to  us  to-day  with  unusual 
appositeness,  for  we  witness  just  what  Ezekiel  and 


98       The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

his  contemporaries  were  witnessing,  a  mighty  con- 
flict among  the  empires  of  the  world  for  the  mastery 
and  the  spoils  of  the  world.  We  shudder  at  the 
slaughter ;  we  grieve  at  the  lack  of  mercy ;  we 
mourn  for  humanity;  we  tremble  for  the  ark  of 
the  Church  of  Christ.  But  we  forget  that  it  has 
ever  been  so,  the  flood  of  man's  pride  and  anger  rush- 
ing to  and  fro  over  the  earth,  engulfing  this  kingdom, 
sweeping  away  that  institution,  ruthless,  and  to  us 
meaningless  and  unguided.  But  God  sitteth  on  the 
flood.  He  ruleth  among  the  armies  of  heaven  and 
doeth  His  will  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth. 
It  would  seem,  at  first  thought,  that  our  belief  in 
God  would  carry  with  it  all  these  considerations, 
and  so  it  does.  But  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  clear 
the  atmosphere  from  time  to  time,  and  avail  our 
troubled  souls  of  those  very  considerations  which 
go  with  a  belief  in  God.  In  regard  to  this  world 
in  which  we  live,  there  are  only  two  positions 
where  we  may  take  our  stand.  We  must  choose 
between  a  world  with  a  God  and  a  world  without 
a  God :  between  a  world  in  which  whatsoever 
comes  to  pass  does  so  with  the  knowledge  and  the 
permission  of  God,  and  in  some  way  finds  a  place 
in  His  purpose  and  plan,  and  a  world  where  every- 
thing just  happens  so,  with  no  governing  will  or 
plan  or  purpose  back  of  it  all.  In  the  words  of  a 
recent  writer,  "Between  freedom  and  fate,  be- 
tween a  personal  God  and  blind  chance,  between 
faith  in  prayer  and  trust  to  luck,  we  are  bound  to 
choose.     Only  the    short-sighted    and    superficial 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine  99 

mind  can  find  a  resting-place  between  these  two 
opinions."  If  we  take  the  latter  position,  then  life 
has  no  problems  and  no  questions.  We  have  come ; 
we  are  here ;  we  shall  go  hence ;  we  shall  have 
joy  and  we  shall  have  pain.  But  how  ?  or  why  ? 
That  we  need  never  ask,  for  we  eliminated  all  pur- 
pose and  all  intelligence  by  dismissing  the  thought 
of  God ;  nor  is  the  day  to  be  saved  by  substituting 
for  God  a  law  of  development  that  will  lead  on  to 
higher  things,  for  we  cannot  allow  a  law  that 
works  to  intelligent  ends  without  also  allowing  a 
lawgiver.  But  if  we  do  believe  in  God  as  a  moral 
being,  as  the  moral  governor  of  the  universe,  then 
it  follows  that  we  must  believe  that  He  rules  and 
governs  all  His  creatures  and  all  their  actions,  and 
that  His  plan  is  beneficent  and  just. 

The  mere  fact  that  men  have  had  that  belief 
and  hope  that  intelligence  and  goodness  guide  and 
control  the  destinies  of  the  world,  and  that  through 
it  all  there  runs  the  increasing  purpose  of  God,  is 
in  itself  a  strong  presumption  in  favour  of  such  a 
plan  and  such  an  end.  That  the  world  moves  on 
to  the  sun-girt  heights  of  perfection  has  been  the 
promise  of  all  religions,  the  burden  of  all  prophecy, 
and  the  spirit  of  all  poetry.  Whether  it  has  been 
the  Eepublic  of  Plato,  the  Atlantis  of  Bacon,  or 
the  Utopia  of  Moore,  or  the  great  dreams  of  He- 
brew prophecy  and  New  Testament  revelation,  the 
Holy  City  coming  down  from  God  out  of  heaven, 
or  the  angry  protests  which  go  up  against  the 
present  state  of  the  world,  the  spirit  back  of  it  all 


loo     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

has  been  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  great  and 
noble  consummation  for  humanity  and  that  the 
world  ought  to  move  on,  must  move  on,  is  ever 
moving  on,  to  that  consummation.  In  spite  of 
hope  ever  deferred,  in  spite  of  the  long  processions 
of  wars  and  cruelties  and  oppressions  and  abomi- 
nations which  pass  under  the  title  of  history,  man- 
kind has  refused  to  be  stripped  of  the  expectation 
for  the  future.  The  tears  through  which  his  eyes 
have  beheld  afar  off  the  City  of  God,  the  reign  of 
justice  and  mercy  and  love,  have  only  served  to 
make  its  towers  and  gates  and  turrets  shine  with 
a  glory  more  resplendent 

* '  There  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer, 
Something  that  gives  our  feeble  light 
A  high  immunity  from  Night, 
Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars 
To  claim  its  birthright  with  the  hosts  of  heaven  ; 
A  seed  of  sunshine  that  can  leaven 
Our  earthly  dullness  with  the  beams  of  stars, 
And  glorify  our  clay 
With  light  from  fountains  older  than  the  day. 

*'  A  conscience  more  divine  than  we, 
A  gladness  fed  with  secret  tears, 
A  vexing  forward  reaching  sense 
Of  some  more  noble  permanence ; 
A  light  across  the  sea, 

Which  haunts  the  soul  and  will  not  let  it  be, 
Still  beaconing  from  the  heights  of  undegenerate 
years.  '^ 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine  lol 

But  not  only  is  there  the  idea  and  the  hope  of  a 
divine  plan  and  happy  end  in  the  mind  of  man,  but 
in  history  there  is  evidence  of  it.  In  his  great  vi- 
sion this  same  prophet  saw  the  four  living  creatures, 
attended  by  the  four  wheels,  moving  forwards, 
backwards,  laterally,  at  once,  because  it  was  a 
wheel  within  a  wheel.  At  first  glance,  the  history 
of  the  world  seems  to  be  just  a  rush  and  roar  and 
clash  of  wheels  within  wheels,  getting  nowhere, 
guided  by  no  intelligence,  accomplishing  no  end. 
But  if  we  look  at  history  in  the  light  of  our  faith  in 
God,  we  shall  have  little  difficulty  in  discovering 
that  the  spirit  of  the  living  creature  is  in  the 
wheel,  that  the  wheels  are  full  of  the  eyes  of  pur- 
pose and  intelligence,  and  that  the  general  move- 
ment of  the  chariot  of  Providence  is  straight  on. 
The  whole  course  of  history  seems  to  have  been 
the  voluntary  effort  of  man,  the  ambitions  of  this 
world  empire  or  that  empire,  the  evil  designs  of  this 
king  or  that  adventurer,  the  pressure  of  economic 
forces,  the  conflict  of  race  antipathies,  the  collision 
of  plans  of  dominion.  But  just  as  God  used  the 
king  of  Babylon  and  the  king  of  Egypt  to  carry 
out  His  purposes  in  Israel,  so  all  the  movements  of 
history  are  not  without  His  permission,  and  do  not 
fail  to  register  His  will.  As  St.  Paul  put  it  in  his 
eloquent  speech  to  the  philosophers  on  Mars  Hill, 
"  He  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  for  to 
dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  hath  deter- 
mined the  times  before  appointed,  and  the  bound 
of  their  habitation."    Just  how  far  Kome  was  to  go, 


102     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

just  how  far  the  British  Empire  is  to  extend,  just 
how  the  map  of  Europe  through  the  rivalries  and 
ambitions  of  rulers  and  politicians  to-day  is  to  be 
changed.  Unthinkable,  you  say  ?  But  if  you  think 
God,  if  you  begin  with  Him,  is  anything  else  but 
that  thinkable  ?  Either  of  these  two  it  must  be, 
God  doing  what  Paul  says,  determining  before- 
hand the  movements  and  the  bounds  of  men  and 
nations,  or  God  just  sitting  aside  and  watching  the 
world  performance.  It  means  a  great  deal  to  com- 
mence your  creed  with  the  declaration,  "  I  believe 
in  God  the  Father  Almighty." 

A  further  evidence  of  the  will  of  God  in  history 
is  shown  by  the  way  in  which  great  issues  have 
turned  upon  little  happenings  that  seemed  to  be 
altogether  fortuitous.  So  far  as  man's  efforts  and 
designs  were  concerned,  the  working  out  of  the 
Divine  plan  was  very  often  the  result  of  chance. 
Pharaoh  happened  to  dream  one  night,  and  the 
chief  butler  happened  to  remember  Joseph,  and  the 
result  was  the  setting  in  motion  of  the  events 
which  led  to  the  Egyptian  captivity.  The  daughter 
of  Pharaoh  happened  to  go  down  to  bathe  at  the 
place  where  Moses  lay  hidden  in  the  reeds  in  the 
Nile,  and  out  of  that  came  the  preservation  and 
the  preparation  of  Moses  for  the  leadership  of  his 
people.  Euth  happened  to  go  into  the  field  of 
Boaz  and  thus  became  the  wife  of  Boaz  and  the 
ancestress  of  our  Lord.  Ahasuerus,  king  of  Persia, 
was  unable  to  sleep  one  night  and  had  his  secre- 
taries entertain  him  by  reading  the  royal  records, 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine  103 

and  thus  learned  how  Mordecai  had  saved  his  life, 
and  that  had  its  part  in  the  saving  of  the  life  of 
the  whole  Jewish  people.  When  Columbus  was 
feeling  his  way  over  the  unknown  ocean,  it  was  the 
flight  of  bu^ds  that  made  him  turn  his  ships  to 
the  south,  and  to  the  southern  continent.  Roman 
Catholicism  and  Spanish  civilization  were  turned 
to  the  isles  of  the  sea  and  the  southern  continent, 
and  the  great  continent  to  the  north  was  reserved, 
in  greater  part  at  least,  for  English  civilization  and 
Protestantism.  It  rained  the  night  before  Water- 
loo, making  the  ground  so  soft  that  I^apoleon  could 
not  get  his  guns  into  position  until  eleven  o'clock. 
"A  cloud  traversing  the  heavens  out  of  season 
sufficed  to  make  a  world  crumble."  These  are  but 
a  few  of  those  strange  events,  which,  so  insignificant 
in  themselves,  yet  under  Him  who 

*^  Views  with  equal  eye,  as  God  of  all, 
A  hero  perish,  or  a  sparrow  fall," 

are  fateful  to  decide  the  issue  of  nations.  "As 
fragments  fit  themselves  into  the  finished  mosaic, 
so  what  to  us  are  chance  and  trivial  events  fit 
themselves  into  the  Divine  plan." 

Once  more  we  can  trace  the  plan  of  God  in  the 
use  He  has  made  of  men.  In  nature  God  works 
immediately ;  in  human  affairs,  mediately,  that  is, 
through  human  agents.  In  the  introduction  to  his 
"  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World  "  Francis 
Parkman  writes:  "  The  springs  of  American  civili- 
zation, unlike  those  of  the  elder  world,  lie  revealed 


104     ^^^  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

in  the  clear  light  of  History.  In  appearance  they 
are  feeble ;  in  reality,  copious  and  full  of  force. 
Acting  at  the  sources  of  life,  instruments  otherwise 
weak  become  mighty  for  good  and  evil,  and  men, 
lost  elsewhere  in  the  crowd,  stand  forth  as  the 
agents  of  destiny."  Both  good  men  and  bad  men, 
obscure  and  celebrated,  have  been  the  agents  of 
destiny.  Cyrus  did  not  know  God,  yet  God  used 
him  to  overthrow  Babylon  and  liberate  the  Jews. 
"He  is  my  shepherd  and  shall  perform  all  my 
pleasure.  I  have  called  thee  by  name:  I  have 
girded  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known  me." 
Men  do  not  need  to  know  God  to  be  used  as  His 
agents  in  carrying  out  His  will.  We  cannot  read 
the  lives  of  Moses,  Elijah,  Isaiah,  Paul,  Peter,  John, 
Luther,  Columbus,  Calvin,  Cromwell,  Lincoln,  with- 
out feeling  that  a  Power  higher  than  they  was 
girding  them  and  using  them,  and  that  they  w^ere 
only  executing  the  decrees  of  God.  Whether,  as  is 
to-day  the  case  with  the  rulers  in  the  European 
nations  now  at  war,  men  claim  that  they  are  the 
agents  of  God,  or  whether,  like  Cyrus,  they  knoAv 
nothing  of  God,  or  like  the  eagle  kings  of  Babylon 
and  Egypt,  think  their  own  will  superior  to,  and 
independent  of,  any  other  will,  if  there  is  a  God  and 
God  has  a  plan,  all  of  them  do  but  further  His 
purpose  and  praise  Him,  whether  with  their  wrath 
or  with  their  devotion.  "  Great  men  are  the  in- 
spired texts  of  the  book  of  revelation,  a  chapter  of 
which  is  completed  from  epoch  to  epoch,  and  by 
some  called  history." 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine         105 

Finally,  in  the  judgment  upon  the  nations,  we 
see  the  evidence  of  God's  plan  and  God's  reign. 
He  doeth  terrible  things  in  righteousness.  What 
is  the  history  of  the  world  but  the  judgment  of  the 
world?  "I  will  dig  thy  grave  because  thou  art 
vile "  was  the  sentence  which  God  through  His 
prophet  delivered  to  Nineveh.  In  surveying  the 
past,  we  are  confronted  by  two  facts :  first,  the  fact 
of  sin  ;  the  nations  have  all  been  vile ;  second,  the 
fact  of  brevity ;  the  kingdoms  and  empu^es  of  this 
world  have  followed  one  another  in  quick  succes- 
sion to  the  grave ;  the  conqueror  from  without,  the 
internal  strife  and  the  corruption  from  within — 
these  have  brought  every  kingdom  low.  Where 
are  these  eagle  empires  of  Babylon  and  Egypt, 
wheeling  and  screaming  over  the  carcasses  of  na- 
tions they  have  conquered  and  dismembered? 
Where  are  the  winged  lions  of  Nineveh?  The 
chariots  of  the  Hittites  ?  The  navies  of  Phoenicia 
and  triremes  of  Carthage  ?  The  phalanx  of  Thebes 
and  the  hoplites  of  Greece  ?  The  legions  of  Eome  ? 
The  treasures  of  Spain  ? 

*^  In  outlines  dim  and  vast 
Their  mighty  shadows  cast 

The  giant  forms  of  empires  on  their  way 
To  ruin  :  one  by  one 
They  tower  and  are  gone  !  " 

Why  did  they  go  ?  Was  it  only  a  question  of 
time,  of  age,  of  national  decrepitude  ?  Or  did  the 
matter  of  sin  and  of  judgment  enter  into  their  fall  ? 


io6     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

Is  it  true,  or  is  it  not  true,  that  all  earthly  govern- 
ment is  brief  and  unstable,  because  it  is  vile  ? 
"  What  are  all  our  histories,"  said  Cromwell, "  but 
God  manifesting  Himself  that  He  hath  shaken  and 
tumbled  down  and  trampled  under  foot  whatso- 
ever He  hath  not  planted?"  "The  sins  of  this 
guilty  nation  will  never  be  washed  away  save  by 
blood,"  prophesied  John  Brown  as  they  led  him 
out  to  be  hanged.  And  in  less  than  five  years 
Abraham  Lincoln,  in  the  sublime  Second  Inaugural, 
made  intercession  and  confession  for  the  whole 
people,  when  he  said,  "If  we  shall  suppose  that 
American  slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses  which, 
in  the  Providence  of  God,  must  needs  come,  but 
which,  having  continued  through  His  appointed 
time,  He  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives 
to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war  as  the 
woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall 
we  discern  therein  any  departure  from  those  divine 
attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  al- 
ways ascribe  to  Him?  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fer- 
vently do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war 
may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God  wills  that  it 
continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bond- 
man's two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited 
toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood 
drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn 
with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years 
ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  '  The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.' " 
In  his  autobiography  Andrew  D.  White  tells  of 


The  Two  Eagles  and  the  Vine         107 

a  visit  he  made  at  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  some 
few  years  after  the  war.  Visiting  the  State  Legis- 
lature, he  saw  the  presiding  officer,  a  mulatto,  order 
a  white  gentleman,  a  gentleman  of  the  Old  South, 
to  take  his  seat.  "  To  this  it  had  come  at  last.  In 
the  presence  of  this  assembly,  in  the  hall  where 
disunion  really  had  its  birth,  where  secession  first 
shone  out  in  all  its  glory,  a  former  slave  ordered  a 
former  master  to  sit  down  and  was  obeyed.  I  be- 
gan to  feel  a  sympathy  for  the  South,  and  this  feel- 
ing was  deepened  by  what  I  saw  in  Georgia  and 
Florida ;  and  yet,  below  it  all,  I  seemed  to  see  the 
hand  of  God  in  history,  and  in  the  midst  of  it  all 
I  seemed  to  hear  a  deep  voice  from  the  dead.  To 
me,  seeing  these  things,  there  came  reverberating 
out  of  the  last  century  that  prediction  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  himself  a  slaveholder,  who,  after  depict- 
ing the  offenses  of  slavery,  ended  with  these  words 
worthy  of  Isaiah— divinely  inspired  if  any  ever 
were — 'I  tremble  when  I  remember  that  God  is 
just ! '  " 

In  the  fullness  of  times  God  shall  bring  history 
to  its  climax  and  set  up  the  everlasting  kingdom  of 
Jesus  Christ.  When  that  is  done  the  whole  earth 
shall  know  that  "  I  the  Lord  have  brought  down 
the  green  tree  and  have  exalted  the  low,"  that  all 
the  confused  movements  of  time  have  been  con- 
trolled by  an  eternal  purpose.  If  you  and  I  had 
gone  to  Mount  Lebanon  where  the  labourers  were 
felling  the  trees  and  sawing  the  lumber  for  the 
temple,  or  to  the  quarries  where  they  cut  out  the 


io8     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

stone  for  walls  and  foundations,  we  should  have 
seen  only  a  tumult  and  heard  only  a  confused  mur- 
mur of  industry.  But  if  we  had  stood  on  Mount 
Moriah  at  Jerusalem,  we  should  have  seen  the 
meaning  of  it  all ;  we  should  have  seen  the  massive 
timbers  and  the  great  blocks  of  stone,  in  holy 
silence,  without  the  sound  of  hammer  or  axe  or 
any  tool  of  iron,  each  fitted  into  their  place  in  the 
temple  of  God.  To-day  we  see  the  tumult  and 
hear  the  noise  and  the  crashing  of  stately  cedars, 
the  sound  of  hammer  and  chisel  and  warlike  tool 
of  iron,  lifted  by  godly  or  ungodly  arm.  God 
hides  His  temple  and  treasures  up  His  designs  in 
the  unfathomable  mines  of  His  sovereign  will. 
But  at  last  the  meaning  and  the  plan  and  the  pur- 
pose of  it  all,  for  the  world,  for  your  life,  for  my 
life,  will  be  made  clear.  Silently  and  majestically 
all  the  timbers  and  the  stones  which  have  been 
prepared  through  time  shall  fit  themselves  into  the 
finished  temple,  the  Holy  City  of  God,  the  Ever- 
lasting Kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ ! 


IX 

The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman 

Isaiah  xxviiu  2j-2g 

THIS  Parable  of  the  Ploughman  follows 
the  prophecy  of  judgment  and  chastise- 
ment upon  Israel.  The  vanity  of  their 
trust  in  foreign  alliances  instead  of  upon  the  Lord 
will  be  demonstrated  when  their  covenant  with 
death  has  been  annulled  and  their  agreement  with 
hell  has  fallen.  The  bed  of  human  devices  will  be 
found  shorter  than  the  recreant  nation  can  stretch 
itself  on,  and  the  covering  of  human  counsels  too 
narrow  for  the  nation  to  wrap  itself  in.  Isaiah  has 
heard  the  decree  of  destruction  and  pictures  the 
overflowing  scourge  of  judgment  onrushing  like  a 
torrential  river  through  the  devoted  land.  He  ad- 
mits that  this  is  a  strange  work  for  God  to  perform 
against  His  own  people,  and  that  the  natural  tend- 
ency of  the  nation  will  be  to  scoff  against  such 
a  prophecy  of  destruction.  The  burden  of  their 
scoffing  was  not  that  the  nation  had  no  need  for 
chastisement,  nor  that  God  had  no  power  to  judge, 
but  that  the  destruction  of  the  Holy  City  and  the 
dispersion  of  the  people  would  be  in  direct  contra- 
diction to  His  purpose  and  plan  for  the  nation. 

109 


no     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

Had  not  God  chosen  the  nation  and  planted  it  like 
a  vine  ? 

*^  Thou  broughtest  a  vine  out  of  Egypt ; 
Thou  didst  drive  out  the  nations,  and  plantedst  it. 
Thou  preparedst  room  before  it, 
And  it  took  deep  root  and  filled  the  land. 
The  mountains  were  covered  with  the  shadow  of  it, 
And  the  boughs  thereof  were  like  cedars  of  God. 
It  sent  out  its  branches  unto  the  sea. 
And  its  shoots  unto  the  Eiver. 
Why  hast  Thou  broken  down  its  walls, 
So  that  ail  they  that  pass  by  the  way  do  pluck  it  ? 
The  boar  out  of  the  wood  doth  ravage  it. 
And  the  wild  beasts  of  the  field  feed  upon  it." 

That  complaint  of  the  Psalmist,  evidently  written 
after  the  coming  of  the  judgments  which  Isaiah 
foretold,  shows  how  difficult  it  was  for  the  Israel- 
ite to  reconcile  what  had  happened  to  the  nation 
with  God's  plan  and  purpose  for  it  as  witnessed  by 
His  election  of  Israel  in  the  beginning,  and  the 
repeated  announcement  of  His  gracious  intention 
towards  the  Chosen  People.  If  this  was  the  state 
of  mind  after  the  destruction  of  the  Holy  City  and 
the  visitation  of  fearful  judgments,  we  do  not 
wonder  that  many  scoffed  at  the  proclamation  of 
the  coming  of  the  whirlwind  and  tempest  of  retri- 
bution and  woe.  They  would  say  to  Isaiah,  ^'  Your 
decree  of  destruction  is  not  in  harmony  with  God's 
choice  of  Israel  in  the  beginning  and  His  care  for 
the  nation  during  all  the  centuries  of  its  existence." 
It  was   in  anticipation  of  this  objection   that 


The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman         1 1 1 

Isaiah  speaks  to  them  the  Parable  of  the  Plough- 
man. He  makes  bold  to  liken  God  in  His  dealing 
with  men  to  the  ploughman  in  his  dealing  with 
the  soil,  the  seed  and  the  grain :  and  the  point  of 
the  comparison,  though  it  yields  other  by-products 
of  truth,  is  in  this :  that  as  the  ploughman  must 
carry  out  a  diversity  of  operations — ploughing, 
harrowing,  sowing,  threshing,  grinding — before 
the  "  wholesome  grain  and  pure  "  appears,  so  the 
Wise  and  Eternal  Husbandman,  in  fulfilling  His 
purposes  with  nations  and  with  individuals,  carries 
on  a  diversity  of  operations :  sometimes  He  breaks 
up  the  soil  with  the  plough  of  preparation;  and 
sometimes  He  harrows  with  the  sharp  teeth  of 
suffering,  or  threshes  with  the  relentless  flail  of 
afiliction ;  and  sometimes  He  scatters  broadcast  on 
the  prepared  soil  the  germinating  principles  of 
truth  and  righteousness;  but  always  His  opera- 
tions, like  those  of  the  ploughman,  have  a  definite 
end  in  view,  the  production  of  the  pure  grain  of 
character.  It  would  be  foolish  to  judge  of  the 
ploughman's  purpose  by  watching  him  wound  the 
protesting  glebe  with  his  ploughshare,  or  beat  the 
sensitive  grain  with  his  flail ;  nor  can  we  judge 
rightly  of  God — God  in  the  history  of  nations, 
God  in  the  history  of  redemption,  God  in  that  his- 
tory which  to  you  and  me  must  ever  be  the  most 
interesting  and  most  important  of  all  histories,  the 
history  of  our  own  lives — unless  we  take  into  con- 
sideration the  whole  plan  and  method  of  God.  He 
has  diversities  of  operations,  but  the  Spirit  which 


112     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

runs  through  them  all  is  one  and  the  same, — al- 
mighty, all-wise,  all-beneficent. 

'  ^  Blind  unbelief  is  sure  to  err, 
And  scan  His  works  in  vain. 
God  is  His  own  interpreter 
And  He  will  make  it  plain." 

As  introductory  to  this  study  of  the  wisdom  and 
graciousness  of  God's  dealings,  we  may  take  the 
reason  which  the  prophet  appends  to  his  study  of 
the  operations  of  the  ploughman :  "  for  his  God 
doth  instruct  him  aright  and  doth  teach  him." 
The  lowliest  of  occupations,  that  of  the  ploughman, 
is  carried  on  by  the  inspiration  of  God.  Poetry 
has  made  the  ploughman  a  figure  of  sentiment  and 
mystery ;  democracy  has  made  him  a  symbol  of 
honourable  and  necessary  toil,  how  even  the  king 
is  servant  to  the  field.  But  Isaiah's  thought  of  the 
ploughman  is  not  that  of  Thomas  Gray  as  he  saw 
him  one  evening  near  Stoke  Poges,  "homeward 
wend  his  weary  way,"  and,  for  all  he  knew,  "  a 
village  Hampden,  a  mute  inglorious  Milton  "  lost 
and  buried  within  him ;  nor  is  his  thought  of  the 
ploughman  that  of  the  political  orator  who  likes 
to  tell  how  he  once  followed  the  plough,  and  thus 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Elisha,  Cincinnatus, 
Lincoln.  When  Isaiah  speaks  of  the  ploughman, 
he  has  before  him  the  plain,  unadorned,  ordinary 
figure  of  the  lowly  husbandman  on  the  hills  of 
Judea,  going  through  the  different  processes  of 
agriculture. 


The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman         113 

Who  taught  him  to  plough  ?  Who  taught  man 
to  take  a  seed  and  cover  it  up  in  the  earth  that  he 
had  previously  prepared  by  ploughing  and  harrow- 
ing, with  the  sure  confidence  that  one  day  the 
tender  shoot  would  appear,  and  that  out  of  that 
cold,  damp  grave  of  the  buried  grain  there  would 
come  a  resurrection  of  new  life  ?  We  marvel  at 
the  gift,  the  talent,  the  inspiration  of  the  orator, 
the  poet,  the  prophet  and  the  apostle,  the  painter, 
the  architect  and  the  builder,  the  inventor  and  the 
statesman.  Whence  came  their  gift  ?  Who  taught 
them  to  roll  out  their  psalms  and  speak  their  fiery 
oracles  ?  Who  instructed  them  how  to  paint,  plan, 
build?  Suppose  I  am  ambitious  to  become  an 
artist.  I  enroll  myself  as  a  student  in  the  Acad- 
emy of  Fine  Arts.  I  listen  to  the  instruction  of 
skilled  teachers  and  I  view  the  works  of  accom- 
plished artists.  After  much  toil  and  thought  I 
might  be  able  to  draw  what  would  be  at  least  a 
fair  likeness  of  this  church  beneath  whose  roof  we 
now  sit.  If  I  happened  to  have  unusual  talent,  I 
might  in  time  produce  something  that  would  be 
worthy  of  your  attention,  perhaps  of  your  admi- 
ration. You  say  my  teachers  taught  me.  Yes,  but 
it  had  to  be  there  before  they  could  draw  it  out. 
And  if  they  did  teach  me,  who  taught  them  ?  It 
makes  no  difiPerence  whether  you  stand  in  rapt 
wonder  before  a  masterpiece  of  Turner,  or  Keyn- 
olds  or  Watts,  or  look  at  the  daubing  of  the  latest 
apprentice,  you  are  confronted  by  that  mystery  of 
a  gift  that  is  in  man,  and  that  man  himself  can  stir 


114     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

up,  can  develop,  can  hand  down  from  generation 
to  generation,  but  never  can  originate. 

What  Isaiah,  himself  one  of  the  most  gifted  of 
men — for  who  shall  match  what  Robert  Burns 
called  his  "  wild,  seraphic  fire  "  ? — says  of  the 
Judean  ploughman,  we  might  ask  of  any  of  the 
actors  in  the  occupations  of  human  life,  high  or 
low.  Who  taught  the  sailor  to  sail  and  to  steer  ? 
The  miner  to  dig  ?  The  mechanic  to  contrive  ? 
The  goldsmith  to  refine  ?  The  miller  to  grind  ? 
All  the  occupations  of  life  presuppose  a  gift  and  a 
Giver.  The  skilled  workman  and  master  mechanic 
of  the  tabernacle  was  Bezalel.  Of  him  Moses  said, 
"  The  Lord  hath  called  Bezalel,  the  son  of  Uri,  and 
he  hath  filled  him  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  in 
wisdom,  and  in  understanding  and  in  knowledge, 
and  in  all  manner  of  workmanship ;  and  to  devise 
skillful  works,  to  work  in  gold  and  in  silver,  and 
in  brass,  and  in  cutting  of  stones."  But  is  not  this 
true  of  all  kinds  of  tabernacles  and  all  kinds  of 
workers?  Civilization  has  its  dark  and  fearful 
spots  of  corruption  and  wickedness,  and  too  often, 
when  we  think  about  the  world  and  its  relationship 
to  God,  we  see  only  those  dark  places.  We  see 
the  great  engine  of  war  hurling  tons  of  metal  to 
destroy  and  maim  and  crush  and  wound,  and  we 
exclaim,  "  How  dreadful  is  this !  Surely  if  there 
were  a  God  in  heaven  this  cruel  war  could  not 
be ! "  But  we  forget  the  wonder  of  the  mind  that 
devised  the  engine  of  destruction,  the  wisdom  and 
the  discretion  which,  although  turned  into  a  wrong 


The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman         iij* 

channel  and  devoted  to  sad  ends,  nevertheless  bears 
eloquent  testimony  to  the  mind  that  is  in  man,  a 
power  which  he  ofttimes  abuses,  but  which  speaks 
ever  of  a  God  who  has  instructed  man  aright,  and 
made  him  upright,  though  man,  in  the  blindness 
of  his  fallen  nature,  has  sought  out  many  foolish 
and  wicked  devices.  We  shudder  with  horror 
when  we  read  of  a  ship  that  sails  under  the  seas, 
and  stealing  upon  its  unsuspecting  and  unprotected 
prey,  delivers  its  death-blow,  and  hundreds  find 
an  ocean  grave.  But  in  our  horror  at  man's  in- 
humanity to  man,  from  age  to  age  making  count- 
less thousands  mourn,  let  us  not  forget  the  wonder 
of  the  mind  that  could  devise  such  a  means  of  de- 
struction and  could  execute  its  purpose  with  such 
fearful  precision.  The  garment  of  civilization  that 
man  has  been  weaving  through  the  centuries  is 
fearfully  and  yet  wonderfully  made,  and  in  every 
stitch  and  thread  proclaims  that  man  is  dependent 
upon  a  Higher  Power.  Eange,  if  you  will,  through 
all  creation,  and  examine  this  marvellous  fabric  of 
life,  and  everywhere  you  will  discover  something 
not  only  worthy  of  a  God,  but  something  which 
demands  a  God  and  presupposes  His  instruction  and 
His  gift.  It  may  be  the  ploughman  guiding  the 
shining  share  through  the  soil,  or  it  may  be  the 
poet  who  sings  in  immortal  melody  about  the 
ploughman,  or  the  prophet  who  takes  him  for  the 
theme  of  his  parable,  or  it  may  be  the  conies,  who, 
though  a  feeble  folk,  have  their  homes  in  high 
safety  among  the  rocks,  or  the  bird  that  builds  her 


1 16     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

nest  so  that  it  swings  from  the  topmost  bough  and 
yet  the  jBercest  wind  cannot  tear  it  from  the  branch 
nor  unhouse  its  little  occupants ;  but  whether  it  be 
the  poet's  song  or  the  prophet's  parable,  or  the 
ploughman's  toil,  or  the  bird's  airy  architecture,  it 
is  the  Lord  God  who  doth  instruct  them  to  dis- 
cretion and  doth  teach  them. 

But  we  have  pursued  this  interesting  by-path  of 
the  parable  far  enough.  Let  us  now  return  to  the 
highway  of  its  teaching,  namely,  the  plan  and  the 
wisdom  of  God's  providential  dealings  with  man. 
Our  minds  become  so  intent  upon  our  own  plans 
and  enterprises  that  w^e  forget  that  God  too  has  a 
plan  and  that  we  live  in  the  midst  of  the  carrying 
out  of  a  great  drama  which  had  its  beginning 
when  the  world  was  created,  and  which  shall  have 
its  ending  with  the  dissolution  of  the  world.  God, 
says  the  prophet,  is  wonderful  in  counsel  and  ex- 
cellent in  wisdom.  The  one  thing  that  made  the 
people  of  Isaiah's  day  doubt  that  God  had  a  plan 
was  the  revelation  that  He  was  to  judge  and  pun- 
ish them.  So  long  as  Israel  was  rich  and  prosper- 
ous they  had  no  wish  to  question  the  wise  and 
beneficent  plan  that  w^as  being  worked  out  in  their 
nation.  But  when  they  are  told  that  a  river  of 
destruction  is  to  flow  over  the  land  again  and 
again,  that  the  monuments  of  their  national  glory 
will  be  levelled  to  the  dust,  and  that  the  people  will 
be  sent  into  captivity,  they  begin  to  ask  if  there 
is  a  God  and  if  His  plan  is  good  and  just. 

That  doubt  of  ancient  Israel  has  its  counterpart 


The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman         1 1 7 

in  the  lives  of  men  to-day.  Our  faith  is  undis- 
turbed when  all  is  well  with  us,  and  health  and 
prosperity  and  happiness  wait  at  our  gate.  But 
when  the  wind  shifts  into  the  northeast,  when  we 
lose  our  money,  when  our  best  laid  plans  "  gang 
aft  aglee,"  when  sickness  and  loneliness,  sorrow 
and  pain  come  to  visit  us,  then  faith  often  ceases 
to  be  a  psalm  of  praise,  and  becomes  a  problem. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  persuade  ourselves,  after  the 
unpleasant  visitation  has  passed,  of  the  good  results 
of  the  visit,  how  we  learn  humility,  patience,  sym- 
pathy. The  Psalmist  said,  "  It  was  for  my  good 
that  I  was  afflicted."  The  stricken  Hezekiah  said 
after  he  had  recovered  from  his  disease,  "  By  these 
things  men  live."  In  some  little  degree,  then,  at 
least  by  way  of  retrospect,  men  are  able  to  per- 
suade themselves  of  the  beneficence  of  the  provi- 
dences which  a  somewhat  out  of  fashion  piety  used 
to  call  "  sorrowful." 

But  just  how  and  why  it  is  that  all  things,  even 
the  worst,  work  together  for  our  good  in  this  life, 
and  in  the  next  for  a  far  more  exceeding  weight 
of  glory,  that  we  must  leave  to  the  empire  of  faith. 
We  must  believe  that  God  works  towards  an  end 
not  less  faithfully  than  the  ploughman  who  has 
been  instructed  by  Him.  Only  the  foolish  man 
will  ask  to  have  this  demonstrated  to  him.  It 
does  not  belong  to  the  category  of  things  demon- 
strable. It  eludes  the  grasp  of  the  hand,  but 
leaves  its  conviction  to  sustain  and  cheer  the  meek 
and  the  humble.    When  Mary  saw  the  risen  Lord 


1 18     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

t>n  the  morning  of  the  Kesurrection,  she  supposed 
Him  to  be  the  Gardener.  And  such  indeed  He 
is.  Our  Lord  is  a  Gardener.  Mary's  supposi- 
tion is  the  Christian's  confidence.  Digging,  prun- 
ing, transplanting,  watering,  all  that  the  plants 
and  trees  of  the  garden  need  that  they  bring  forth 
fruit,  that  life  does  for  man,  and  faith  tells  us  that 
back  of  life  is  the  Living  God  Himself.  Awake, 
O  north  wind,  and  come  thou  south,  and  blow 
upon  my  garden  that  the  spices  thereof  may  flow 
forth ! 

As  the  prophet  speaks  of  this  ploughman,  he  re- 
minds his  hearers  how  differently  he  deals  with 
different  crops.  The  wheat,  barley,  fitches  and 
cummin  he  plants  in  different  ways  and  harvests 
and  threshes  in  different  wa^ys.  "  The  fitches  are 
not  threshed  with  a  sharp  threshing  instrument, 
neither  is  a  cart-wheel  turned  about  upon  the 
cummin;  but  the  fitches  are  beaten  out  with  a 
staff,  and  the  cummin  with  a  rod."  If  this  is  the 
careful  method  of  the  ploughman,  are  we  to  ex- 
pect less  of  the  ploughman's  God  ?  My  neighbour 
to-day  needs  joy  and  I  to-day  need  sorrow,  and 
according  to  our  needs  God  deals  with  us.  He 
does  not  visit  men  as  one  indistinguishable  mass 
of  beings,  but  apportions  His  gifts  to  the  individual 
needs.  And  that  diversity  of  operations  upon  men 
should  convince  us  of  the  wisdom  and  the  goodness 
of  God.  It  was  the  reflection  of  the  Psalmist  that 
He  knoweth  our  frame  and  remembereth  that  we 
are  dust.     Before  He  sent  you  that  load  to  bear, 


The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman         119 

that  grief  to  carry,  that  work  to  perform,  God 
considered  your  frame,  just  what  you  were  able 
to  bear  and  what  sort  of  a  burden  was  necessary 
for  you.  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb. 
In  this  study  of  husbandry  all  the  divers  oper- 
ations of  the  farmer  were  carried  out  with  one 
ruling  motive,  the  garnering  of  the  grain.  He  did 
not  plough  for  the  sake  of  ploughing,  nor  harrow 
for  the  sake  of  harrowing,  nor  plant  for  the  sake 
of  planting,  nor  thresh  for  the  sake  of  threshing, 
but  to  store  away  the  harvest  in  his  barns.  Has 
God  a  like  purpose  ?  Sometimes  we  faint  beneath 
the  burden  of  this  heavy  unintelligible  world.  For 
its  rivers  of  sorrow  and  its  fountains  of  woe,  for 
its  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide  of  righteousness,  for 
its  dense  clouds  of  passion  and  ignorance,  for  its 
savage  outbursts  of  bestiality  and  brutality,  for 
its  love  of  the  darkness  and  its  hatred  of  the  light, 
for  its  pathetic  groping  through  long  centuries  in 
the  night  of  error  in  order  to  stumble  upon  the 
truth  it  so  much  needs,  for  its  bloody  and  senseless 
Armageddons,  for  all  this  we  are  disquieted  when 
we  think  upon  God.  What  is  the  end  towards 
which  He  doth  work  ?  What  is  the  purpose  which 
guides  and  controls  His  Hand  ?  When  we  think 
of  mankind  and  the  history  of  the  world,  are  we 
not  often  taking  upon  our  lips  the  sigh  of  the 
stricken  Job,  "  Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I  might 
find  Him !  Behold,  I  go  forward,  but  He  is  not 
there ;  and  backward,  but  I  cannot  perceive  Him ; 
on  the  left  hand  where  He  doth  work,  but  I  cannot 


120     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

behold  Him :  He  hideth  Himself  on  the  right  hand 
that  I  cannot  see  Him !  " 

It  is  indeed  possible  for  us  to  fortify  ourselves 
by  the  study  of  the  past  and  find  the  evidences  of 
His  ways  in  His  dealings  with  men  and  nations  of 
yesterday  and  in  the  general  progress  of  mankind. 
But  when  it  comes  to  a  demand  for  an  answer  to 
the  question,  "  To  what  end  does  God  deal  with  the 
nations  ?  To  what  end  does  He  deal  thus  with 
me  ?  "  we  have  no  recourse  but  that  of  faith.  All 
that  we  can  do  is  to  trust  Him  for  His  goodness. 
*'  But  He  knoweth  the  way  that  I  take :  when  He 
hath  tried  me,  I  shall  come  forth  as  gold."  The 
lesson  that  Isaiah  draws  from  the  work  of  the 
husbandman  Job  draws  from  the  operations  of  the 
goldsmith.  It  is  not  that  God  ploughs  and  breaks 
and  threshes  that  troubles  me.  But  this :  Does  He 
do  it  for  my  good  and  for  a  happy  end  ?  It  is  not 
that  I  am  tried  in  the  fire  that  troubles  me,  but 
this  :  Shall  I  one  day  come  forth  as  gold  ? 

In  his  celebrated  argument  for  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  and  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  Paul 
flung  out  this  challenge  :  "If,  after  the  manner  of 
men  I  have  fought  with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  what 
ad  vantage  th  it  me,  if  the  dead  rise  not?"  The 
whole  struggle  of  life,  its  never  ceasing  battle  with 
the  beasts  of  temptation  and  doubt  and  sorrow  and 
pain,  seemed  to  Paul  terribly  meaningless  and 
empty,  unless  the  struggler  is  to  be  crowned  by  a 
blessed  immortality.  If  that  is  all — to  be  born,  to 
struggle  for  a  little  in  the  arena  of  life,  and  then 


The  Parable  of  the  Ploughman        121 

die  and  go  back  to  nothingness — life  is  a  cruel 
tragedy.  Farewell  all  honourable  conduct  and 
striving !  Farewell  the  Christian  virtues  and  the 
mind  of  Christ !  Farewell  the  delights  of  the  mind 
and  the  imaginations  of  the  spirit !  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die !  Paul  there  declares 
that  he  cannot  hold  to  God  and  His  goodness  un- 
less another  life  follows  this  life.  The  ploughman 
ploughs  in  vain  unless  we  are  to  have  those  man- 
sions of  which  Jesus  spake.  The  refiner's  furnace 
burns  in  vain  unless  after  the  furnace  trials  of  this 
mortal  existence  we  are  to  come  forth  as  gold. 
The  afflictions  common  to  all  men  in  this  life  are 
not  to  be  reconciled  with  the  fact  of  God  unless  they 
do  indeed  work  for  us  an  eternal  weight  of  glory. 


<( 


n 


My  own  dim  life  should  teach  me  this, 
That  life  should  live  forevermore, 
Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 
And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is. 

This  round  of  green,  this  orb  of  flame, 
Fantastic  beauty  ;  such  as  lurks 
In  some  wild  poet,  when  he  works 
Without  a  conscience  or  an  aim. 

"  What  then  were  God  to  such  as  1 1 
'Twas  hardly  worth  my  while  to  choose 
Of  things  all  mortal,  or  to  use 
A  little  patience  ere  I  die. 

**  'Twere  best  at  once  to  sink  to  peace, 
Like  birds  the  charming  serpent  draws, 
To  drop  head-foremost  in  the  jaws 
Of  vacant  darkness  and  to  cease." 


122     The  Parables  of  the  Old  Testament 

These  doubts  and  fears  are  laid  by  the  voice  of 
Christ.  "  Ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  me." 
Sometimes  we  seem  to  reverse  that  order  and  be- 
lieve in  God  because  we  have  believed  in  Christ. 
How  often  did  He  reassure  us  as  to  the  good-will 
of  our  Father  in  Heaven!  How  often  and  how 
beautifully  did  He  remind  us  of  the  value  God 
placed  upon  a  single  soul !  Yes,  we  are  worth 
more  than  many  sparrows,  and  because  Christ  has 
come  and  loved  us  and  died  for  us,  we  believe  that 
this  that  we  see  and  experience  here  upon  earth 
cannot  be  all,  that  the  final  explanation  of  life  is 
that  of  the  next  stage  of  existence.  What  it  is, 
eye  hath  not  seen,  ear  hath  not  heard,  and  its  mys- 
teries and  glories  have  not  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man.  But  I  wait  upon  the  Lord.  If  it  were  not 
so,  I  believe  that  Christ  would  have  told  me.  I 
shall  be  satisfied  when  I  awake  with  His  likeness. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


BIBLE  STUDY,  DEVOTIONAL,  Etc. 

A.    T.    ROBERTSON,  P.P.,  LLP. 

Studies  in  the  New  Testament 

A  Handbook  for  Bible  Classes  in  Sunday  Schools, 
for  Teacher  Training  Work,  for  use  in  Secondary 
Schools  and  Colleges.     i2rno,  cloth,  net  50c. 

In  it  are  no  references  to  books  of  any  kind  outside  the 
Bible.  With  the  help  of  the  maps  and  a  New  Testament  one 
can  study  this  work  with  no  other  books  in  hand. 

REV.   JOSEPH  T.  GIBSON,   P.P. 


Jesus  Chri^  :    The  Unique  Revealer  of  God 

8vo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

The  author  has  sought  to  see,  and  aid  others  in  seeingf 
Jesus  Christ  as  He  is  presented  in  the  Scriptures.  He  has 
compiled  a  "Life"  neither  critical  nor  iconoclastic,  but  de- 
signed for  those  who  regard  the  Word  of  God  as  being  not 
only  the  infalliable  guide  to  faith  and  duty,  but  the  authentic 
chronicle  of  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord.  Dr.  Gibson  has 
harmonized  the  Gospels  and  from  them  constructed  a  graphic 
narrative  which,  contrives,  to  re-limn  an  old  picture  with 
freshness  and  charm. 

REV.    GEO.    H.    YOUNG,  M.A.y  AssU  Prof.  RhtUrU  and  Publit 

'——^——^—^^——^————^——^———    Sfeaiine,  Colgate  Univtrtity 

^The  Illustrative  Teachings  of  Jesus 

The  Parables,  Similies  and  Metaphors  of  Christ. 
i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

"A  most  readable  and  practical  treatment  of  the  methods 
of  the  Master  for  the  general  Bible  student  aiid  Christian 
worker.  A  valuable  contribution  to  one's  conception  of  Jesus 
as  the  'Teacher  come  from  God,'  and  revealing  in  life,  con- 
tent of  instruction  and  method  of  presentation  the  will  of 
the  Father." — Reznew  and  Expositor. 

W.  BEATTY  JENNINGS,   P.P. 


The  Social  Teachings  of  Chri^  Jesus 

A  Manual  for  Bible  Classes,  Christian  Associa- 
tions, Social  Study  Groups,  etc.    i6mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 

In  a  series  of  twenty  studies,  the  teachings  of  Jesus  are  ap- 
plied to  specific  social  sins  and  needs  of  to-day,  such  as  poverty, 
pleasure,  war,  the  drink  traffic,  etc.,  and  shown  to  be  the  sur« 
and  only  solution  of  the  problems  of  society. 

ROBERT  FREEMAN 

The  Hour  of  Prayer 

Helps  to  Devotion  When  Absent  from  Church. 
i2mo,  cloth,  net  75c. 

"A  volume  of  reverent  purpose  designed  especially  for 
those  who  wish  some  form  of  Sunday  observance,  or  who,  by 
stress  of  circumstances,  are  prevented  from  attending  serv- 
ices in  the  churches.  To  shut-ins,  mothers  with  young  chil- 
dren, nurses  ?nd  others  who  are  unable  to  attend  public  wor- 
ship, the  book  will  particularly  appear." — Buffalo  Express. 


QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY 


FREDERICK   W,   PEA  BODY 

The  Religio-Medical  Masquerade 

New  Bdition.    i2mo,  cloth,  net  $i.oo. 

Ten  years  of  critical  investigation  of  Christian  Science,  Tt- 
peatedly  with  the  aid  of  legal  process  in  important  litigations 
IB  which  Mri.  Eddy  was  a  party  and  he  examined  under  oath 
many  of  her  closest  adherents,  have  qualified  Mr.  Pcabody, 
above  all  others,  to  give  a  truthful  representation  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  movement  and  its  leaders.  He  was  the  Massa* 
chusetts  lawyer  for  Mrs.  Eddy's  sons  in  their  protracted  liti- 
gation. 

7.  M.  HALDEMAN,   P.P. 

Christian  Science  in  the  Light  of  Holy 
Scripture 

New  Revised  Bdition,    i2mo,  cloth,  net  $i.oo. 

"Dr.  Haldeman  brings  every  question  he  considers  to  tht 
bar  of  that  highest  tribunal,  and  tests  it  in  the  full  light  of 
the  divine  revelation.  All  the  resources  of  his  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible  and  of  his  powers  of  keen  insight  and  ef- 
fective presentation  are  drawn  upon.  He  has  so  well  suc- 
ceeded that  we  do  not  see  what  more  can  be  said.  The  proof 
is  absolute;    it  is  clearly  stated;    it  is  exhaustive." — Examiner. 

T.    A.    PHILLIPS  Mhticnary  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 

Church  South  tn  Mexico 


Roman  Catholicism  Analyzed 

A  Dispassionate  Examination  of  Romish  Claims. 
With  Foreword  by  Bishop  Burt.    8vo,  net  $1.50. 

"A  dispassionate  examination  to  the  claims  and  doctrines 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  arguments  are  clear 
and  conclusive.  The  logic  is  masterful,  incisive,  merciless 
and  based  upon  undisputed  facts.  The  style  is  clear,  lucid 
and  fascinating.  It  is  an  arsenal  of  anti-Catholic  facts."— 
Lcokout. 

UnLLIAM    PARKER 

The  Fundamental  Error  of  Woman 
Suffrage 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 

Most  of  the  arguments  advanced  against  Woman  Suflfrage 
are  purely  economic.  The  author  of  this  volume  adopts  an- 
fother  course,  declaring  the  fundamental  error  to  lie  in  the 
r'^alm  of  morals.  From  this  viewpoint  he  discusses  his  subject 
in  its  moral  relation  to  the  chief  phases  of  modern  life — mar- 
ria^'e,  home,  religion,  social  intercourse,  civic  and  political 
activities,  and  so  forth. 

W,  HALL  CALVERT,  M.D. 

The  Further  Evolution  of  Man 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

A  vigorous  counterblast  to  the  Darwinian  theories  ®f  Nkl- 
'iral  Selection  and  the  Survivial  of  the  Fittest.  The  con«tr»c- 
cive  aim  of  the  volume  is  to  prove  that  soeial  asaelioratioB  i« 
a  necessity  of  the  spiritual  evolution  now  in  pr©«eM  in  o«r 
Western  civilLzation. 


BiBLfi  STUDY 


fROF.    EDOUARD  NAFILLE,  C.D.L.,  LLP.,  F R.S. 

Archaeology  of  the  Old  Testament 

Was  the  Old  Testament  Written  in  Hebrew? 
Library  of  Historic  Theology.  8vo,  cloth,  net  $1.50. 

Professor  A.  H.  Sayce  says:  "A  very  remarkablo  work, 
and  coming  as  it  does  from  one  of  the  leading  Egyptolofists 
of  the  day,  who  is  also  a  practical  arch«ologist,  its  argu- 
ments and  conclusions  carry  unusual   weight." 


J.  R.  BUCKLAND,  M.A.    (Editor)       An  Entirely  n»w 

'  tiki*  Dictitntrf 

Universal  Bible  Dictionary 

Large  8vo,  cloth,  net  $1.50. 

A  work  prepared  with  the  definite  aim  of  aiding  the  ordi- 
nary reader  and  Bible  student,  rather  than  critic  and  schol- 
ar. It  is  also  arranged  so  as  to  serve  as  an  introduction 
to  systematic  theology  study,  and  contains  extended  arti- 
cles on  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith  by  such 
experienced  teachers  as  Prof.  S.  W,  Green,  Dr.  W.  H. 
Griffith  Thomas,  Principal  Warman,  and  others  of  equal 
standing.  On  questions  of  modern  criticism,  the  general 
exposition  taken  by  the  compilers  is  a  conservative  one,  al- 
though exhaustive  account  has  been  taken  of  the  conclusioa 
of  up-to-date  criticism  and  research.  The  volume  extends 
to  about  five  hundred  pages,  and  contains  upwards  of  four 
thousand  five  hundred  articles 


PHILIP   MAURO 

EXPOSITORY  READINGS  IN  THE  EPISTLE 
TO  THE  ROMANS 

God's  Gospel  and  God's  Righteousness 

Romans  I-V.     12mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 

God's  Gift  and  Our  Response 

Romans  VI-VIII.     12mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 

God's  Love  and  God's  Children 

Romans  IX-XVII.  12mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 
A  helpful  and  clearly-written  body  of  comment  on  St. 
Paul's  Letter  to  the  Romans.  The  author  is  a  layman  whose 
work  is  known  and  valued  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
Mr.  Mauro  does  not  write  for  scholars,  but  for  devout  and 
worshipful  believers — for  men  and  women  whose  faith  iS 
■implc,  yet  grounded  on  the  Word  of  the  Living  God. 


BIBLE  STUDY,  Etc. 


B.  H.  CARROLL,  P.P. 

An  Interpretation  of  the  English  Bible 

Numbers  to  Ruth.        8vo,  cloth,  net  $1.75. 

"These  works  are  designed  especially  for  class  use  in  the 
Seminary,  Christian  Colleges  and  Bible  Schools,  as  well  as 
the  Sunday  School.  Iliat  they  will  make  the  greatest  com- 
mentary on  the  English  Bible  ever  published,  is  our  sincere 
conviction." — Baptist  and  Reflector. 

OTHER   VOLUMES  NOW  READY 
The  Book  of  Revelation.    8vo.  cloth,  net  $1.75. 
The  Book  of  Genesis.    8vo,  cloth,  net  $2.25, 
Exodus  and  Leviticus.    8vo,  cloth,  net  $2.2S 

/.  FRANK  SMITH,    P.P. 

My  Father's  Business— And  Mine 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

Dr.  Smith  devotes  the  earlier  part  of  his  book  to  a  study 
of  Christ's  historic  pronouncement  concerning  His  Father's 
business,  presenting  an  examination  of  the  analogical  content 
of  the  word  "Father,"  and  an  analysis  of  the  Master's  own 
sayings  respecting  His  earthly  mission. 

JOHN  F.    STIRLING  Author  of '  An  Atlas  of  the 

•  ' — =  Life  of  Christ' ' 

An  Atlas  of  the  Acts  and  Epistles 

A  Complete  Outline  of  Apostolic  History,  Show- 
ing the  De'ails  of  the  Apostles'  Journeys  and  the 
Area  of  the  Epistles  in  Specially  Drawn  Maps.  8vo, 
limp  cloth,  net  40c. 

"Gives  at  a  glance  a  complete  and  graphic  outline  of  apos- 
tolic history.  The  outline  follows  the  narrative  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  supplemented  by  the  data  furnished  in  the 
epistles,  and  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  best  scholarship. 
The  historical  details  are  presented  in  their  geographical  and 
chronological  setting,  on  a  series  of  specially  drawn  maps,  so 
that  the  student  may  follow  easily  the  movements  of  the 
leading  figures  in  the  growth  of  the  early  church." — Service. 

JESSE  FOREST  SILVER 

The  Lord's  Return 

Seen  in  History  and  in  Scripture  as  Pre-Millennial 
and  Imminent.  With  an  Introduction  by  Bishop 
Wilson  T.  Hogue,  Ph.D.     8vo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

In  his  Introductory  Preface,  Bishop  Hogue  of  the  _  Free 
Methodist  Church  says:  "An  encyclopedia  of  valuable  infor- 
mation condensed  into  a  convenient  hand-book  for  ready  ref- 
erence. 


EARLIER  WORKS  IN  DEMAND 


EDf^ARD   A.     STEINER  Auth,r  •/  « On  the  Trail 

-^———————-^^———  of  the  Immierant" 

From  Alien  to  Citizen 

The  Story  of  My  Life  in  America.  Illustrated, 
8vo,  net  $1.50. 

"To  pick  up  any  book  by  Dr.  Steirier  is  always  to  be  as- 
sured of  a  story  of  fascinating  interest;  but  to  have  the  nar- 
rative of  his  life  from  the  time  he  left  the  home  country  for 
America,  giving  the  processes  and  experiences  that  have  made 
him  one  of  us  in  very  fact,  down  to  the  present  time,  will  be 
hailed  with  delight  by  all  who  know  him." — Record  of  Chris- 
tian JVork. 

JOHN  HENRY  JOIVETT 

My  Daily  Meditation 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

"One  page  for  each  day  of  the  year.  It  is  scriptural, 
spiritual,  stimulating.  One  may  find  much  food  for  mind  and 
heart  on  the  pages  prepared  by  this  gifted  preacher  and  man 
of  God." — Herald  and  Presbyter. 

HUGH  BLACK,  M.A. 

Friendship 

New  Pocket  Edition.     i2mo,  cloth,  gilt  top,  net  $1.00. 

Issued  in  response  to  the  popular  demand  for  a  pocket 
edition  of  this  gift  book  which  has  become  a  classic. 

"Tender  and  winning,  and  at  the  same  time  vigorous  and 
incisive,  shows  the  fine  grain  of  the  man's  nature." — The 
Outlook. 

CHARLES  SILVESTER    HORNE  YaU  Lecture,  .n 

—  '   '"  Preach  ine 

The  Romance  of  Preaching 

With  Biographical  Sketch  by  H.  A.  Bridgman, 
Editor  of  The  Congregationalist.  With  Portrait. 
l2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

"The  intellectual  distinction  which  marked  Home's  utter- 
ances, together  with  the  rare  spiritual  insight  displayed  all 
combined  to  make  notable  the  service  rendered  by  Mr.  Home 
to  Yale  University." — Charles  R.  Brown,  D.D. 

A.    R.    BUCKLAND.    M.A.     (Editor)  An  Entirely  New 
' Bible  Dictitnary 

Universal  Bible  Dictionary 

Large  8vo,  cloth,  net  $1.50. 

"So  compact  that  the  student  can  quickly  get  what  he 
seeks.  It  is  up-to-date,  printed  on  good  paper,  clear  type, 
well  bound.  To  Sunday  School  teachers  it  is  invaluable." — 
Methodist  Protestant. 


SERMONS—LECTURES— ADDRESSES 

JAMES  L.  GORDON,   P.P. 

Airs  Love  Yet  All's  Law 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

"Discloses  the  secret  of  Dr.  Gordon's  eloquence — fresh, 
and  intimate  presentations  of  truth  which  always  keep  close 
to  reality.  Dr,  Gordon  also  seems  to  have  the  world's  litera- 
ture at  his  command.  A  few  of  the  titles  will  give  an  idea 
of  the  scope  of  his  preaching.  'The  Law  of  Truth:  The 
Science  of  Universal  Relationships';  'The  L,aw  of  Inspiration; 
The  Vitalizing  Power  of  Truth';  'The  Law  of  Vibration'; 
'The  Law  of  Beauty:  The  Spiritualizing  Power  of  Thought'; 
The  Soul's  Guarantee  of  Immortality." — Christian  Work. 
BISHOP  hRANCIS  J.  McCONNELL         Cole  Lectures 

Personal  Christianity 

Instruments  and  Ends  in  the  Kingdom  of   God. 
l2nio,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

The  latest  volume  of  the  famous  "Cole  Lectures"  delivered 
at  Vanderbilt  University.  The  subjects  are:  I.  Ihe  Per- 
sonal in  Christianity.  II.  The  Instrumental  in  Christianity. 
III.  The  Mastery  of  World-Views,  IV.  The  Invigoration 
of  Morality.  V.  The  Control  of  Social  Advance.  VI. 
"Every  Kindred,  and  People,  and  Tongue." 
NEWEU  D  WIGHT  HILLIS,  P.P. 

Lectures  and  Orations  by  Henry  Ward 
Beecher 

Collected  by  Newell  Dwight  Hillis.     l2mo,  net  $1.20. 

It  is  fitting  that  one  who  is  noted  for  the  grace,  finish  and 
eloquence  of  his  own  addresses  should  choose  those  of  his 
predecessor  which  he  deems  worthy  to  be  preserved  in  a 
bound  volume  as  the  most  desirable,  the  most  characteristic 
and  the  most  dynamic  utterances  of  America's  greatest  pulpit 
orator. 

fr,  L.  ff  ATKINSON,  P.  P, 

The  Moral  Paradoxes  of  St.  Paul 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

"These  sermons  are  marked,  even  to  greater  degree  than 
is  usual  with  their  talented  preacher,  by  clearness,  force  and 
illustrative  aptness.  He  penetrates  unerringly  to  the  heart 
of  Paul's  paradoxical  settings  forth  of  great  truths,  and  il- 
lumines them  with  pointed  comment  and  telling  illustration. 
The  sermons  while  thoroughly  practical  are  garbed  in  strik- 
ing and  eloquent  sentences,  terse,  nervous,  attention-com- 
pelling."— Christian  World. 
LEN  G.  BROUGHTON,  P.P. 

The  Prodigal  and  Others 

,   i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

"The  discourses  are  vital,  bright,  interesting  and  helpful. 
It  makes  a  preacher  feel  like  preaching  once  more  on  this 
exhaustless  parable,  and  will  prove  helpful  to  all  young  people 
— and  older  ones,  too.  Dr.  Broughton  does  not  hesitate  to 
make  his  utterances  striking  and  entertaining  by  the  intro- 
duction of  numerous  appropriate  and  homely  stories  and  il'ns- 
trations.    He  reaches  the  heart."— -K??^*«zf  and  Expositor. 


i 

DATE  DUE 

te-,-...^ 

<¥ 

' 

API!"8fN 

^-""•msOKH 

as*** 

-/iraitiy* 

t 

iT 

°'™*-««»H,,j,»li» 

CAYLORO 

PRINTED  INU.». A. 

IfiiiSi  iiiiliiiiii 


BS1199  .P3M2 

The  parables  of  the  Old  Testament, 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library^ 


1   1012  00006  9247 


